


Heroes of Nothing

by ChosenOfKagami



Category: Haikyuu!!, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Blood, Established Relationship, Minor ushiten - Freeform, Multi, Rating May Change, all your favorite characters are probably assholes, everyone's a criminal everyone's an asshole sorry, link would've gotten away with half of this in most universes tbh, minor kuroken, no knowledge of zelda or haikyuu needed (hopefully), separate from official zelda timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2018-10-20 08:50:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10659123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChosenOfKagami/pseuds/ChosenOfKagami
Summary: Hyrule has, as far as legends say, been worse off.But without a sign of the hero of legend, things could, quite frankly, be better.Tooru, however, is a little more concerned with how many rupees he can get his hands on, than with the ominous cloud hovering over Hyrule Castle.





	1. Heroes of Bad Luck

"I don't know if I love you enough for this."

To Tooru, those words were white noise, mingled with the crackles and hisses of smoke and flame crawling from breaks in the rock around him.

The heat of the cave bit at him and warned him to escape with every ember that fluttered past his eyes. The only thing that had kept him alive thus far were some overpriced clothes imbued with a heat-protecting magic. And maybe his sword and shield. And a knapsack of (now-baked) apples.

The knapsack was heavy, though, and he'd already considered tossing it into a pool of lava just to ditch the weight several times now. Dropping it on the floor for a moment would have been more reasonable, but it was hard to be reasonable when your face felt close to melting off and your back was aching from a bunch of stupidly heavy fruit. He'd much rather have been aching from too many rupees.

He stood at the edge of a path and squinted down at the flames licking up from the pit below. Said path only circled around the opening. The only other clear way to go was up the way they came. Surely, still, there was something else waiting for them, below.

"Oi, are you even listening to me?"

He only registered _those_ words because they came with a sharp smack to the back of his head.

Beside him, his partner in crime huffed out his nose. The glare on his face was a common sight, so he didn't think much of it. He also didn't think much of the sweat the other was covered in, and the sheen that left on his skin, but he might later, when he wasn't considering jumping off a fiery cliff.

"I'm telling you this is stupid." Hajime tugged Tooru away from the edge by his hood. He ignored the pout Tooru offered in return. "We are not going down there."

"I could have fallen when you hit me, you know."

"If you head back up that path, I won't have to smack more sense into you."

Tooru scrunched up his nose, but upping the pout game didn't seem to be helping his case.

"No," came Hajime's definite response.

"We came so far already!"

"And we can leave the same way we came."

Tooru pointed a finger down at the flames. "Something's waiting down there for us, and I'm not leaving without it." A loud growl punctuated his statement. It hadn't come from him, hungry as he was. It wasn't Hajime, either. Tooru chalked it up to rocky fire-cavern sounds, but his partner didn't look so convinced.

"That _something_ is gonna eat us alive." Hajime took a step back, dragging Tooru along with him as another tall flame licked up from below. "If the fire doesn't, first."

"Think of the _treasure,_ Hajime."

"No amount of rupees is worth my life. Or yours."

The next growl was more of a low rumble that shook the entire cave.

Hajime opened a hand to the flames, as if that demonstrated his point well enough.

Tooru's thoughts were already far down another path, however.

"How many ice arrows do you have left?"

"Tooru, I _swear--"_

"Bomb arrows might be better. What about those? If we can blow it up from here, there's no problem."

Hajime tugged at his spiky dark hair in frustration. "Yes! The fucking _pit of fire_ is still a problem, monsters or not!"

"On second thought, save your arrows. I'll just drop a bomb."

Hajime gaped, hands still in his hair, while Tooru fiddled with one of the bags hanging from his belt. Soon, he’d withdrawn a handful of small, dark blue spheres. He held them over his head, away from the flames, as he leaned over the edge once more to peer down into the heated abyss.

“You can’t just _bomb_ everything, Tooru.”

“Says you.” Tooru squinted, but he couldn’t think of a single thing that would help him see past all the flames. He heard another growl, though, and it was definitely louder than the last.

A hand clamped around his wrist, and he turned his pout onto Hajime once more.

“Wait,” Hajime said, with that tired sort of tone he had when he’d only sort of given into one of Tooru’s crazy ideas, “What’s the plan for once you throw those things down there?”

Tooru stared down at the fire with a thoughtful look. “I was thinking something along the lines of _‘jump.’”_

 _“Into_ the fire?”

“No, into the soft, cozy bed the cave dwellers have so kindly set up for us at the bottom.” He rolled his eyes. _“Yes,_ into the fire, Hajime.”

“Okay.” Hajime tightened his grip on him. “You’ve been going bomb crazy. A rock probably hit your head during one of the blasts. So, in case you forgot, there’s this thing that happens when people jump into fires, Tooru. That thing is called _‘death.’”_

Tooru shook his head and dismissed Hajime with a wave of his free hand. “Our clothes are heat resistant. We’ll be fine.”

“They aren’t fall resistant. They ain’t gonna stop your face from melting off, either.”

Tooru groaned, and reclaimed the hand Hajime had been holding. He was still holding onto the bombs, however, and Hajime seemed set on not letting them out of his sight either way.

He held the three tiny bombs up. “When have I ever had a bad idea?”

“That time with the Gorons.”

Tooru opened his mouth to retort, then closed it, then opened it again once he’d thought it over. “That was a good idea. Just poor execution.”

“I can guarantee you we aren’t going to have good execution in jumping off this ledge.”

“Well _you_ think of another plan, then!” He pointed a finger before Hajime could even respond. “One that doesn’t involve leaving empty handed!”

Hajime’s scowl was enough of an answer. He didn’t have any plans besides “give up” on this one.

And Tooru wasn’t going to have any of that.

He turned, and before Hajime could reach for his hand again, he threw all three bombs out into the pit.

Hajime still grabbed him, and tugged him away from the pit yet again, this time dragging them both to the far wall to avoid the oncoming explosion. The bombs he’d thrown were just as small as the ones Hajime tied to his arrows from time to time, but they still packed a pretty big boom.

“I can’t _fucking believe you,”_ Hajime hissed, just as the first bomb was going off.

The other two followed almost immediately after. Tooru wondered how far they’d even fallen before the fire had set them off. He wasn’t even quite sure how far the drop was, to begin with.

The answer to his question was soon give by, not another growl, but by a raging roar that shook the cave with twice the force as before. The bombs had, at the very least, made it far enough to disturb whatever was wandering about the flames below.

“Great.” Hajime had his hands and back pressed flat against the wall. He refused to move from it, even as Tooru scrambled back for the edge for a look at their results. _“Get back here, you ass,”_ he called, trying not to reach a yell, as if the bombs hadn’t made enough noise to announce their arrival.

Tooru didn’t follow his orders, of course. He realized Hajime knew better than to expect such, too. Instead, he grinned at what he saw over the edge.

And he _really_ saw it, this time.

All scales, and far larger than the two of them put together, the creature crawled along the cave floor in search of the explosion’s source. The flames had mostly died down, with just a few lingering along the walls of the pit and the occasional crack in the ground.

The creature weaved in and out of stalagmites with the panic of a lizard who’d had its tail torn off. This one’s tail was still connected, however, glowing a bright orange that mirrored the flames around it.

It stopped at the center, at the base of the tallest stalagmite, and flicked its tongue in and out as it searched its surroundings. At the very tip of the stalagmite, Tooru could make out something shimmering a bright blue in contrast with the rest of the cave, when it hadn’t been before.

“We hit a switch!” He turned his grin onto Hajime, who was still far from thrilled. “The flames are gone! See? I know what I’m doing.”

“You know how to get us _killed.”_

“I know how to get us _rich,”_ he countered. “Do you know how much those things’ scales are worth? You can’t see it from there. Get over here. It’s fine, it can’t see us. Now, look.” Tooru pulled Hajime close from the side, by the shoulders. “Do you know what these clothes are made out of?” He tugged at the end of his tunic. “What sort of material can withstand this sort of heat?”

“Just skip the quizzing and tell me what you’re thinking.”

Tooru pointed down at the creature that had yet to notice them. “Dodongo scales. I bet you our bomb bags are made out of some part of these guys, too.”

“It’d be easier to just steal a bomb bag.”

“Stay with me, Hajime.” The creature turned its head their way, and only then did Tooru shut his mouth. It flicked its tongue out a few times, then went on about its search below. He lowered his voice the next time he spoke. “That’s the biggest dodongo I’ve ever seen, and the fact that someone installed a switch to control the flames? That tells me there’s something that someone needs to access down there, and that thing’s guarding it.”

Hajime watched the thing climb up a smaller stalagmite. “Sure. And how do you plan on killing something that big? We don’t know if those flames had a time limit or not. They could come back and grill us the second we get down there.”

Tooru’s answer was to clench and open his hands, spreading them out from either side of his face while he excitedly mouthed the word _“Bang.”_

Hajime glared at him. He already knew the answer would be bombs. They’d fought these things before, albeit on a much smaller scale. And, even when susceptible lizard monsters weren’t involved, the answer was often “bombs” anyway.

“Alright, let me rephrase that. How do you plan to off that thing when you only have, what, two bombs left? Because you just wasted three, and I wasn’t counting how many you set off on the way here.” Hajime grabbed Tooru by the face and turned his head toward the monster. “You think you can get that in two shots? Or am I wasting my arrows, after all?”

With his face squished by Hajime’s hands, Tooru’s pout made him look very much like a fish. “Save your arrows. And I have _four_ bombs left, thank you. I think I can get at least one in its mouth. Preferably on the first try. I’d like to have some as back up.”

“It’s mouth…” Hajime shook his head. “You can’t do that without jumping down there, idiot. Aim for the tail.”

“Blowing it up from the inside is more likely to kill it!”

This time, when Hajime reached to pull Tooru back from the edge, the latter swooped his arm out of his reach. He was already climbing down from the path.

 _“Tooru!”_ Hajime had tried desperately to keep his voice quiet as he looked from Tooru to the dodongo, and back.

Tooru caught himself on a ledge, and tilted his back just enough to shush Hajime with a finger to his lips, and a grin that read, _“Trust me on this.”_

He wasn’t sure if Hajime actually trusted him on this, but he’d always gotten away with stunts like this in the past, and they’d come out alive so far. So, that had to count for something, right?

He licked his drying lips made a note of the number of ledges and their placements on the way down. The sword and shield at his back clanged around too much, so he’d have to be especially careful if he didn’t want to be heard. The hisses of smoke and fire would maybe help to drown him out, but then he had to worry about the dangers of all of _that,_ too. He could feel steam rising from somewhere directly below him, and he could see the occasional flame lick out from a crack in the wall.

He took a moment to map it all out. Once he thought he had a good idea of which ledges were safe to descend, he did so, slowly, and with Hajime’s voice nagging in the back of his head, _“Don’t do anything stupid.”_

Well, too late for that, maybe.

The heat wasn’t getting much more bearable the further he climbed. He’d made it about halfway, and the clothes on his back were becoming so uncomfortable against his skin that he’d really, truly considered stripping right there. He might have, if the damned tunic wasn’t the only thing keeping him from burning alive in this place.

The creature had finally stopped its frantic searching, in any case. Apparently it was pretty easy for monsters to just get over it and move on after three explosions took place overhead. It was curled up on the ground, at the base of the tallest stalagmite. Tooru looked to the top of the thing, just to be sure that the crystal switch was still glowing the same color. It was still blue, and not flickering with any sort of warning. Yet.

Good enough.

He climbed down to the next ledge, just as cautious as before, until he felt a sudden, new heat against his leg. He sucked in a sharp breath as the steam made its way up his side. When it brushed his hand, his fingers slipped from the rock, and he whispered a curse. He tried to regain his hold on the wall, but the heat lingered in places his tunic didn’t quite cover.

The problem wasn’t that his hands were burning from mountain steam and his desperate clawing at the stone. The problem was that his boots made contact with the ledge with a loud _crunch,_ and bits and pieces of rock went falling down the pit from his struggle.

The problem was that when he looked past his shoulder, there was a big, angry dodongo staring right up at him.

It opened its mouth, all gaping and dark as it drew in a breath, before a bright red formed from deep within its throat.

It grew brighter, brighter, and Tooru could almost feel the heat coming off the creature as the flame built up within it. Then, with a sick, gurgling sort of sound, the dodongo unleashed a breath of fire Tooru’s way.

All attempts at stealth thrown out the window, he lept from the ledge and clumsily stumbled his way across the pit’s floor, out of the fire blast’s path. He could vaguely hear Hajime shouting something. His name, along with some curses, and possibly directions that he couldn’t make out well enough to follow.

He pulled his shield from his back, and sprinted across uneven ground when he felt the heat of another blast coming on. He skidded past that breath, and brought his shield before him to block the next. It came fast, and the flames swept over the top of the shield, past Tooru’s head, just short of catching his hair.

He noted, then, that he should have pulled his hood back up before jumping down here. Or maybe brought a helmet along.

He had to squint past the burn as it curled around him, beyond the shield, close to, but just missing engulfing him completely. He peered past the top of his guard just as the fire was clearing. The dodongo was already drawing in another breath, its mouth wider than what seemed possible, sucking in air with enough force to draw in loose pebbles and ash from their surroundings.

Then, came the bright light from its throat, and Tooru ducked low to the ground and hid his face behind the shield once more.

He knew the thing was huge, but it took being on the same level as it to fully register the scale of the creature. He was beginning to fear that four tiny little bombs may not be enough to take down something of this size, even from the inside.

But, he couldn’t exactly back out, now, when his options were either _“try it anyway,”_ or be reduced to a crisp on the ground of some random cave in Eldin.

The moment the flames died down, and the dodongo drew in its next breath, Tooru broke into another run. He kept his shield to his side, preparing for the next wave of heat, and reached into the bag at his belt. He withdrew a single bomb, this time, and turned his head away when fire assaulted him from the side. He kept running, clutching the tiny blue sphere tight.

It should be noted that his shield was not in the best condition, as it was. He'd found it somewhere alongside a skeleton earlier within the cave, which should have been their first hint to get out while they could. He’d never taken such hints before, though, so he'd politely traded his old shitty shield with the skeleton’s, slightly-less shitty one.

Now, it was more shitty. The thing was covered in dents and scorch marks from falling rocks and magma, already, and this stupid fire-breathing lizard monster wasn't doing him any favors.

He didn't have all day to get this timing right, when the damned thing was close to breaking on him.

He waited for the sound of the creature drawing in another long breath. Upon it, he swung the shield to the side, pushing back the lingering flames, and flicking his wrist just right so that the bomb rolled into the path of its inhale.

The explosive was pulled in along with the stray pebbles, and the dumb thing didn't even seem to notice. Size, apparently, had little effect on a dodongo’s intelligence. They were all equally easy to trick into eating a _fucking explosive,_ it seemed.

It closed its mouth, prepared for what was going to be another blast of heat, but its jaw stayed frozen in place. Tooru heard a loud, burping sort of sound, followed by the ever-anticipated, and slightly-muffled _boom_ of the bomb going off from within the thing. The noise was followed by a loud, shrieking hiss.

Smoke flooded out from its mouth, and it stumbled from its place of attack, darting from side to side in a frenzy.

Tooru withdrew his sword, and with the resulting _shing_ of it sliding out its sheath, he couldn’t help but grin. Hajime had told him not to bring his favorite things along. Said he was better off keeping them safe and sound, back home. Tooru had compromised by leaving the nice shield, but he’d still taken the sword, a black blade with red designs etched into its metal.

The _shing_ sound it made also caught the dodongo’s attention, and it locked onto him and found a single direction to channel its rage in.

It crawled after him, weaving in and out of stalagmites in its path. When it opened its mouth to inhale, the bright light never came. Tooru seized the opportunity, swinging his weapon out to his side and running for the thing straight-on. It seemed to realize that the fire wouldn’t come, and opted for chomping its mouth down onto its prey, instead, but Tooru darted to the side, out of its path, shield still brandished and sword at the ready. He jumped, then, onto its side to climb his way up its back. It was longer than it was tall, so it wasn't all that big a task, aside from all of the bucking and jerking in its attempts to throw him off.

Still, he held his ground. It was a miracle he couldn’t hear Hajime yelling at him from up the walls, right now.

Come to think of it, where had he gone to, anyway?

He tore his gaze from his target that was the dodongo’s tail, and looked up to the path he'd descended from, but saw no signs of Hajime. In his distraction, the creature slammed its side against another large stalagmite, knocking Tooru from its back and sending him rolling across the rocky ground. When he pushed himself to his knees, it was with fresh scrapes along the side of his face, and what he was sure were bruises beneath his clothes.

And it was charging after him again, mouth open wide and drawing in air. Still, there were no signs of fire from inside that open maw. And, still, there were no signs of his partner, shouting from above as he’d expect.

His shield met its mouth with a loud, echoing _clang_. He felt the rock scrape his knees through his clothes as the force pushed him back. He tried to keep from falling again, from losing control of the shield that held the dodongo’s jaw open wide, but it just kept pushing, pushing until Tooru’s back was to the wall of the pit.

He could see, glowing around the edges of the shield, the build of reddish light from its throat.

Tooru gasped with what he thought could very well be his last breath, but what followed that breath was not the telltale wave of heat, but a sudden blast from up above.

It all happened quicker than he could really make sense of. There was a thick smoke flooding the view of the ceiling, and rock was crumbling down upon them. Something cracked, far too loud, and the dodongo was releasing its hold on Tooru’s shield. It tilted its head far back with a gargled cry, the heat in its throat going dim, then going out completely. It stayed like that, for a moment, its head tipped up high toward the ceiling, and then it collapsed, sending pebbles bouncing off the ground with the weight of it falling to the floor beside Tooru.

He tried to catch his breath, only bringing a hand to cover his mouth and nose from the smoke when he found it in him to peel himself from the wall.

Something else fell to the floor, and then there were footsteps. When Hajime came into view, it was with wide eyes and his bow in hand, with bomb arrows at the ready.

“I told you to save those,” Tooru actually managed to scoff between breaths.

“I saved you, instead. Is that still a problem?”

Tooru peered down the dodongo’s length. Two heavy stalactites had fallen from the blast of Hajime’s arrow. One, the largest, had landed upon the creature’s back, though it was hard to tell with all the debris if it had actually driven all the way through. The second, smaller, but still an overwhelmingly large hunk of rock, had struck straight through its once brightly glowing tail.

Hajime set his arrow back in its quiver and cleared his throat. “Should’ve done that from the start.”

“Yeah,” Tooru breathed with relief as the lifeless look in the dodongo’s eyes finally registered. “Yeah, you should have. Were you _aiming_ for the tail?”

Hajime raised a hand, like he was going to smack him in the arm, but seemed to reconsider at the sight of Tooru’s face, all scraped up from the rock. Instead, he sighed and reached for something in one of his bags. “You think I’d make a hit like that outta sheer luck?” He withdrew a glass vial, hardly larger than his thumb. A reddish liquid sloshed inside.

Tooru brushed his hand away, and climbed up onto the dodongo’s back, between the fallen stalactites. “That can wait. I wanna find whatever this thing was guarding.”

“You’re bleeding. You know that, right?”

“I’ve had worse.”

“You look like a Goron parked ass on your face.” Hajime stuffed the potion back into his bag. “So, when we get out of here and you find a mirror, don’t say I didn’t tell you.”

Tooru leaned between the two pillars of rock and hummed. “As long as you still love me while I look like a Goron’s chair.”

Hajime closed his eyes and took a deep breath. At the very least, he could wait until they were out of the deadly fire cave to strangle his lover.

Tooru poked his head out from the stalactites. The rocks along one section of the wall stood out from the rest. Too crumbly, like they’d been placed there intentionally, and not a natural part of the cave. He grinned, whispered a delighted, _“Found you,”_ and hopped off from the monster’s corpse.

He bounded over to the wall, a new bomb already drawn from his bag by the time he got there. He didn’t ignite it right away, however. Instead, he stared up at the arrangement of rocks, even as Hajime came up beside him.

“You’re having seconds thoughts about blowing things up _now?”_

Tooru uncurled one finger from the bomb to point out at the wall. “It stands out a bit, right?”

“No shit.”

Tooru pursed his lips. “I don’t just mean the way it’s _obviously_ made to cover something up. We’ve found trick walls like this before, right?”

Hajime’s confirmation came in nothing but a small grunt.

“And a lot of them… and a lot of the stuff in this cave, it all kinda looked settled, right? Like it’d been left there for a long time. Whereas this…”

“Looks like someone’s messed with it recently?” Hajime moved past him, and brushed a gloved hand over the stones. He kicked some rubble on the ground. There was a lot more accumulated near this part of the wall, and it seemed unlikely that it had just scattered from his earlier stunt.

The dodongo could have easily made a mess, but the rocks concealing the walls opening were too meticulously placed. Too tidy, despite the mess on the floor.

“Someone just set this up, not too long ago.” Tooru idly tossed and caught the bomb in his palm, all while staring the wall down, somehow more offended by it than the giant lizard creature that had just about eaten him alive. “Could be a trap. They could still be here, for all we know.”

“Your point?”

“My point is that you should be prepared, because I’m still blowing this wall through either way.”

Knowing full well that arguing was useless when Tooru was already raising a bomb up before him, Hajime backed a significant distance away from the wall. The explosive sizzled upon being lit, and soon Tooru was retreating along with him, the bomb left at the carefully stacked wall of rocks’ base.

Both of them turned their backs to the loud bang that ensued. When they peeked back over their shoulders, the stones were tumbling down and away from the newly revealed opening. Tooru didn’t waste any time in waiting for the path to completely clear. He climbed over the debris and into the shallow hole in the wall.

Lo and behold, at the back of the small space, an old, dinged up, metal chest was waiting for him.

Tooru let out a pleased cackle. Popping the thing open didn’t take much effort, which was exciting as it was off-putting. He could just blame age, or maybe the explosion, but he found himself staring down at the thing with displeasure before he’d even opened it all the way.

It wasn’t until he felt Hajime peering over his shoulder that he lifted the lid completely.

He knew what he was looking at, once it was opened. He understood what he was seeing, for the most part, he just couldn’t quite process that it was _real_.

Without even looking, he knew that Hajime was fuming behind him. He was tempted to throw the chest at the wall, himself. He blinked a few times, then closed his eyes for a longer moment, in hopes of seeing something different upon opening them again. At the very least, in hopes of seeing a different color.

“What kind of _bastard--?!”_

Hajime had already turned away from the hole in the wall, hands messing through his hair while he rambled on. “Who takes the _time?_ If you’re going to loot a cave, why the _fuck_ would you bother leaving anything for someone else to find? No, no, you know what? That’s understandable. Some asshole wants to leave the equivalent of a, _‘Sorry, you lose,’_ note for us. _Fine_. But who in the _fuck_ goes out of their way to not only leave a replacement treasure, but meticulously _re-build the wall_ hiding it? All while a dodongo bigger than King Zora’s _ass_ is wandering around? How’d they get around the dodongo? They sure didn’t kill it. We did that. _I_ did that. Just now. Did they sing it a lullaby? Did they _put_ the dodongo here?”

He was still raging, and Tooru was still staring at the inside of the chest, and the single, green gem sparkling back at him in the light of the cave’s embers.

“--Could’ve found a green rupee under a rock! Would’ve saved us the trouble! Sure wouldn’t have to be a rock anywhere near Eldin, either! You know where else has rocks? Everywhere. We can go find some rocks on a nice, relaxing beach. We’ll probably find three whole rupees. We’ll be fuckin’ rich, and we won’t have suffered third degree burns for it.”

Tooru would remember this the next time Hajime called him the overdramatic one. Granted, this was a perfectly acceptable situation to be enraged over. He was half-tempted to point out that neither of them had suffered third degree burns just yet, however.

Rather than doing so, he plucked up the rupee and turned back toward the dodongo. He looked the translucent gem over a few times. It was real, for whatever that counted for. How generous. He wanted so desperately to know what had initially been in that chest, though. Surely it wasn’t this.

“We can still loot the dodongo,” he said, quietly, as if that might hide his own frustration over all of this. It might have, if it weren’t Hajime, of all people, accompanying him.

Hajime dropped his hands and squinted at the gem in Tooru’s hand. “Are you _keeping_ the rupee?”

“It’s money!”

“It’s _one_ rupee!”

“I’m not _leaving_ the rupee!” He shoved the thing into another of the many pouches at his belt, and marched on over to the dodongo’s corpse. He kicked at the creature, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. He didn’t even know where to begin. The scales were of value, he knew that much. He was pretty sure the insides were, too, but he certainly didn’t know which parts that included. The thing was far too big for them to carry out whole.

“How much do you think we can get off this thing?” Hajime was already up on the thing’s back. “And are we just skinning it, or what? If we had the tools to cut through this, we wouldn’t have had to bomb it.”

Skin was peeling out from where the stalactites had pierced through the tail. It was the only place Tooru could think to start.

And so they did.

By the time they were climbing back out from the pit, it was with bags full of rolled up hunks of dodongo skin. They were cut unevenly, as dodongo scales were a pain in the ass to work with, even when the thing was dead and peeling at the tail. How the Gorons worked with these things to make actual, decent clothing out of, he had no idea. The messy shreds they’d managed to secure probably weren’t even large enough pieces to make much more than gloves out of, but he figured they could find _someone_ to pawn them off on.

Tooru also, much to Hajime’s objections, had managed to remove the entire end-half of the tail that hadn’t been pierced, and currently had it slung over his shoulder.

“Maybe we can come back for the rest,” he’d suggested. He was shot down immediately, because Hajime insisted that there was no way they’d be returning to this cave.

The tail proved to get in the way a few times, which came as no surprise. It was why Hajime had told him not to lug it along with them, to begin with. Still, by the time they were out of the cave, Tooru had one, almost-whole dodongo tail to show for it. And a bag full of scales. And one rupee.

He held the tail high up over his head, as one might a trophy, or the corpse of a long-time enemy slain.

The triumphant pose was brushed aside as Hajime made his way past him, to the first sign of shade he could find. The heat outside of the cave was still awful, to say the least, but it was far more bearable than the inside. There was less lava flowing in this particular spot, and there was a small section of rock that created the perfect overhang for them to catch their breath.

Hajime dropped all of his belongings beneath it, and slid down against the reddish rock with the world’s longest groan.

Tooru was still holding the thing up as he followed after him. “We did it!”

“We found an empty treasure stash and the weakest part of an oversized lizard. Congrats.”

Tooru plopped down beside him and dropped the tail into his lap. He set his hands over it, stroking it fondly like it was a pet cat. “It wasn’t _empty_. And we have more than just the tail. Someone’s gonna buy those scales, I know it.” He gave the scaly sleeve of Hajime’s tunic a flick. “This wasn’t a loss!”

“Who are you trying to convince?”

Tooru pouted, and smacked him with the tip of the tail, next. “I’m trying to be positive. Would you rather me complain?”

 _“I’ve_ been complaining, so I _know_ you want to.” Hajime laced his fingers and stretched out his arms until a series of satisfying cracks ensued. “But, I guess if you’d listened to me, we wouldn’t have anything to show for it. And we’re still alive. Your face still looks like shit, though.”

“The bleeding stopped.”

A small vial of red liquid was being dangled in Tooru’s face after that.

He brushed Hajime’s hand away, but his opinion, apparently, didn’t matter much. Hajime popped the bottle open, and soon he had blotted a bit of cloth with the potion. He hooked Tooru by the chin with one hand, and turned his head so that their eyes met. Tooru’s nose scrunched in a pout, but only for a second, as the cuts covering his nose didn’t seem to get along with that gesture.

“Relax your face and hold still, asshole.”

Tooru closed his eyes, and tried very hard not to make a face in anticipation of the oncoming sting. Hajime dabbed the cloth at the scrapes, and when Tooru couldn’t react with his face, his entire body shivered in retaliation.

“People used to actually drink this stuff, you know,” Tooru supplied, as soon as the cloth was pulled away.

Hajime was already dabbing more of the liquid onto it, and then it was back on Tooru’s face. “People used to brew it differently, then. I don’t think this one’s gonna feel much better going down than on your face.” Despite the sting of the potion working its magic on the scrapes, there was still something gentle to the way Hajime carefully dabbed at the injuries. He was slow, and pulled back from time to time to allow Tooru’s flinching and shuddering.

He was being a baby, and he knew it. He’d had far worse injuries than this. But, then, most of those weren’t on his face. That would be his excuse for being so sensitive, right now, if Hajime continued to pick on him.

“Does it really look that bad?”

With a pitying look, Hajime finished up his handiwork on Tooru’s face, and then set the cloth aside to pull his shield out in front of him. The metal had all sorts of intricate, unnecessary designs carved into it, but there were enough almost-smooth sections to serve as a sort of mirror. A faded mirror, that would probably make Tooru’s reflection look worse than it was, but a mirror nonetheless.

Tooru pulled the shield a bit closer and squinted at his blurry reflection. At the sight of thick, long, red stripes marking his once gorgeous, near-perfect face, he let out the most pathetic whine he’d ever heard himself make.

He pushed the shield into Hajime’s chest with a choked up sob. _“Why_ did you let this happen?”

“I--”

“If you say ‘I told you so,’ I _swear.”_

“Don’t ask stupid questions, then.” Hajime leaned the shield against the rock and tugged the knapsack out from behind Tooru. He tossed one baked apple into Tooru’s lap, and bit into another for himself. “Quit sniveling and eat something, so we can get going. We should get out of the heat, but we’ll both pass out and roll off into some lava pit if we don’t get something in us, first.”

Tooru sniffled, wishing that they’d had a larger variety of elixirs on them from the get go. He took a reluctant bite of the apple, only to whine again before he could even start chewing the thing.

“It hurts to eat.”

“Does it hurt to talk?”

He pondered that. “A little…”

“Then stop.”

It didn’t require any extra energy for him to smack Hajime in the arm.

There was quiet, and then the sound of laughter failing to be silenced, in quiet snickers and chuckles through bites of warm, softened apple. Tooru ate about half the thing, insisting that he’d eat more once they got down the mountain.

They kept in the shade, whenever they could find it. Still, fiery critters crossed their paths, and embers and smoke found their way from out of sight pits and lava lakes.

They could hear the sounds of the city on their way, but they would not be stopping there for a room at the inn, or to pawn off their findings. They would not be stopping there, because after “The Goron Incident,” as Hajime so often called it, neither of them were allowed to set foot through the gates.

They found themselves at a familiar stable a short ways from the foot of the mountain, complete with an inn and a variety of characters from all over the kingdom. Of all the traveling stops near the Eldin region, this one seemed to attract the most traffic.

Horses trotted past them, and folks of all races were chattering about this and that. Complaints of the heat seemed most frequent, whenever Tooru dared to eavesdrop. One Zora could be seen dunking her shark-shaped head into the water trough intended for the animals, while the big, round and yellow rock-man of a Goron next to her rambled on about which spots up the mountain had the tastiest rocks.

All around the outside of the building, along the dirt path and under the rare shade of a tree, people had set up tents and blankets with all sorts of wares. That was why Tooru always prefered to pass through this place on the way to Goron City-- well, when they were still allowed in the city. It was a common path to take, and those who didn’t want to travel all the way up the mountain to make a few extra rupees could still make a decent profit at its base. The Hylians running the stable didn’t seem to care, either. In fact, Tooru was quite sure they’d started charging merchants who wanted to set up shop.

He tugged the dodongo tail from his shoulder with a grin. “Time to get rich!”

“Time to _sleep.”_ Hajime shoved the tail back toward him. “You’re gonna scare off the buyers with your face, anyway.”

Tooru made an affronted sound and hugged the tail close to his chest. But, because he had his dose of recklessness in the cave already, Hajime was the one to get his way, this time.

The inn was nicer than some of the other stables they’d been to, if only because it had actual rooms with actual walls, rather than some assortment of beds in one, open area. That also made it more expensive, even if the rooms weren’t very _nice,_ and they were already low on what money they had on hand, as it was. Their amazing find of one rupee wasn’t going to help them much.

Hajime slid his fingers back through his hair, elbows on the innkeeper’s desk. Eventually, his forehead found the desk, too, and the innkeeper looked close to shoving him aside with force.

“It was twenty, last time we were here,” he grumbled into the wood.

Tooru patted his back and slid his way in front of the innkeeper. Haggling, Tooru was good at. He knew money, knew what things were worth, and he had the charisma to convince people to bring their prices down, more often than not.

Maybe he was too tired for it now, because even the pity card, with his face covered in scrapes, wasn’t doing him any good.

They found themselves on their asses out against a stable wall, after that, just ten rupees short of the sixty they needed.

“You pay forty for a nice, cozy inn in town. Not sixty for the creaky excuse for a bed they have here.”

“Maybe they got better beds, now that the traffic’s thriving.” Hajime had his knees pulled up, arms rested over them while he glared out at the crowds. “Even if we got the price down, we’d still be broke until we got home.”

“Then, we’d better start selling some of these dodongo parts, hm?”

He knew Hajime wanted him to rest up first, but they needed the money, and he’d like to get some of the extra weight off their backs sooner than later.

They could always just steal the money, but they were tired. Low on energy. The risk of getting caught was a risk of getting banned from yet another Eldin hotspot.

Hajime may have had the same thought, as he stared off at nothing in particular, contemplating Tooru’s suggestion. It was likely he was considering camping out, too, but Tooru already had an arsenal of counters at the ready for that, should he propose it.

Thankfully, said arsenal wasn’t needed, this time around. Hajime was at his feet again soon, tugging Tooru up along with him.

The two quickly found that dodongo parts were less profitable in these parts than Tooru anticipated.

_“A dong-what-o? Never heard of ‘em.”_

_“If I wanted a lizard’s ass, I’d go chase one up a tree, myself.”_

_“Scales? For Goron armor? Don’t you boys think you’d have more luck taking your business to the city?”_

This wasn’t working.

There were a few among the Goron race in the crowd, but when one noted how he was _sure_ he knew them from somewhere, but he just couldn’t place _where,_ Hajime pulled Tooru aside and declared a “No More Talking To Rocks This Close To Goron City” rule. It was a shame, too, because that last guy had actually seemed interested in looking at what they had.

They managed to find only one buyer before sundown: a seamstress from some no-name town south of Eldin. Even then, she’d only been willing to buy one of their smallest patches of dodongo scales.

With the vendors packed up and the crowds dwindled to nothing, they found themselves before the inn’s desk once again, with just slightly more rupees than before. Enough for one night, and maybe some scraps of food, if they were lucky.

Tooru sat himself and the tail down at one of the round, wooden tables across from the front desk, while Hajime handled the rooming situation. Most people had gone off to their rooms, with the exception of two other tables, one of which some elderly man had fallen asleep at, and would likely be kicked out sometime soon. The other, sat two Hylians engaged in quiet conversation. Too quiet for proper eavesdropping, even with the otherwise quiet of the room.

There was a clink as Hajime sat a glass of water down in front of him. He sat across the table, then, their room key next to his own drink.

Tooru frowned at the glass. “That’s not food,” he said, though he was already lifting it to his lips. “Are we just going off apples the rest of the night?”

“We can get food now, but then we’re stuck with rotting apples in the morning, ‘cause we barely have any rupees on hand to spare, and the food here’s as overpriced as the room.”

A laugh came from the table that didn’t have a sleeping occupant. Someone around their age, with pale brown hair and narrow eyes, turned in his seat so his back was no longer facing them. He was smirking something unpleasant. “If you can’t afford twenty a night, you probably shouldn’t be traveling, should ya?”

A stretch of silence filled the room, as Tooru and Hajime stared at the stranger. His friend was hunched over their table, studying some kind of scroll, paying them no mind.

Tooru felt his mouth twitch in a smile. The sort of smile that came only when you were trying to restrain something far from happy. “Twenty?”

The stranger just looked between the two of them, while Tooru made a laughing sound that was nowhere near genuine.

“You didn’t get a room for twenty.”

The guy wasn’t smirking anymore. He was grinning. On the edge of laughing, it seemed. “They did, didn’t they? They overcharged you? And you paid for it, holy shit.”

Tooru opened and closed his mouth, then looked to Hajime, who was already glaring at the long-departed desk. The front doors had been closed up, too. The owners had already retired to bed, leaving them with nothing but the flickering candles at the tables, and the passed out old man, who, Tooru swore, had better have fucking paid _something_ to still be allowed in here.

“I guess that’s what happens when you make a name for yourself,” the stranger said, tapping the tabletop and earning a small, distracted glance from his friend across him.

Tooru’s smile remained plastered on his face, despite the twitchy feeling building behind one eye. “Sorry?”

The guy laughed, again. “There’s a joint up in the city with a bunch of wanted posters, you know. They over-exaggerated some parts of the portraits, but you guys sure do look a lot like ‘em.” He pointed a thumb to a door off to the side, one with a “Staff Only” sign dangling from a hook. “They might not say no to thieves here, but they’ll make you pay for the risk boarding you brings ‘em, whether you know it or not.”

Tooru narrowed his eyes, smile softening somewhat, but somehow looking all the more unsettling because of it. “It sounds like you stay here often. Are you close with the owners? Or is it that you’re friends with some thieves, yourself?”

The stranger’s face was all foxlike. Dangerously amused. His eyes popped wide when the scroll at the table rolled shut with a _snap,_ and his friend got to his feet.

His friend, with his messy black curls that somehow still managed to look perfect (and somehow pissed Tooru off), tucked the scroll beneath his arm. “Aki, I think it’s about time we head back to our room.”

The fox-eyed stranger groaned something, but got to his feet nonetheless.

His friend turned steely, dark eyes onto the two of them before departing. “The tourists here aren’t going to understand the worth of dodongo scales. There’s a small town with a mine a ways down the road. It’s far enough from the city that you may have more luck.”

Tooru did not thank him for sparing the information. He watched them, expression fading into something darker as they disappeared down the hall.

Hajime huffed and set his glass down on the table. “I guess this is one more place to cross of our list.” He tugged his bag up from the floor and pushed the chair back. “Let’s go. I think I want to rest and get out of here as soon as possible.”

Tooru downed the rest of his own drink, and followed him to their room. Their certainly-not-worth-sixty-rupees-a-night room.

The bed was just as old and creaky as before, with once-fluffy blankets that had thinned out over time, the colors of their intricate patterns faded.

Tooru dropped all but the tail and fell into the blankets on his back, hugging the lizard’s body part close to his chest. Hajime was already retrieving the apples, which were better than having no food, but Tooru really wanted a juicy, roasted bird leg right about now. Not more fruit. He certainly wasn’t going to resort to munching on the tail, either.

“I wonder where they keep their safe in this place,” he thought aloud, earning a harmless smack to the shoulder from Hajime. It might’ve been to the head, if he didn’t look like such a mess.

Hajime held out an apple, and Tooru reluctantly sat himself back up, one arm still curled around the tail.

“They’re charging us more than their other customers! It’s only right we take back the extra we had to pay, at least.” He bit off a chunk, and waved the apple as he spoke around bits of mashed food. “Besides, thaf’s what fey get for taking in fieves.”

“They’ll know which thieves did it though, asshole. We’re not trying to get famous for this.”

Tooru swallowed, and spoke more clearly this time. “Maybe we should. Maybe we should come up with nicknames and everything. Have people all over Hyrule talking about us.”

“The good thieves don’t get talked about, because the good thieves don’t get _caught.”_

 _“Boo,”_ was apparently all that Tooru had to add on the topic, as he finished off the rest of his apple in silence, along with a second one after. Once finished, he stripped off his shirt and flopped back onto the bed.

Hajime was still sitting on the edge, his weight preventing Tooru from pulling the covers up and over himself.

“Hey, if they really know who we are, do you think they might… send for the authorities, or something?”

Tooru tugged at the blanket beneath him. “That suspicious guy said they don’t care.”

Hajime raised a brow. “And you believe him?”

“We haven’t stolen anything from _them._ They have nothing to report on us.” Tooru smacked Hajime’s back, as close to his ass as he could reach while he was still sitting on the covers. “The Gorons didn’t even arrest us. They just kicked us out and said we’d be screwed if we went back. Now, can you _please_ move your butt so I can get some of that rest you’ve been nagging me about?”

Hajime moved, but not his butt. Instead, he fell back until he was laying over Tooru’s legs. Tooru leaned over, flicked him in the nose, and Hajime blew cold air in his face in response. It might have felt nice, in the Eldin heat, if it hadn’t been right in his eyes.

Tooru squinted through his bangs as they fell back in his face from the blow. His usually sweeping, fluffy locks were such a mess from the day’s events, but he could worry about that in the morning. It wouldn’t make up for the impossible-to-hide scrapes, but it’d be something.

In the meantime, Hajime was giving him that amused sort of smile he always gave when his looks weren’t his usual level of near-perfection. It was an endearing smile that Tooru didn’t quite understand, given the subject, but couldn’t help but love to see, nonetheless.

“I’m gonna tell Issei the dodongo sat on your face.”

Tooru pulled the tail from beside him and whacked Hajime in the face with it. “Tell him it sat on both of us, ‘cause you’ll be matching me, if you don’t move.”

Hajime grabbed onto the scaly thing and tugged it out from Tooru’s hands. He sat up, went to toss it on the ground, out of the way, but Tooru lunged himself at him. They were each holding one end, Tooru with the gross, severed part of it, all sticky and meaty with broken bone sticking out from the center. Maybe he should have wrapped it up with something, now that he thought about it.

“Tooru, this thing is not staying in bed with us.”

Tooru gave it a tug toward himself. “People saw us with it! Someone might try to come and take it.”

Hajime tugged back. “After all that success with the merchants today? I promise you, no one wants your stupid lizard tail.”

With a bit more struggling, and the possibility that Hajime was just too tired to keep it up, Tooru reclaimed the tail, held it close, and cuddled up with its not-gross end on the pillow like it was his lover.

He vaguely heard Hajime mutter something like, _“You’ve got to be kidding me,”_ but he was more distracted by the fact that Hajime had moved enough for him to pull the covers over himself. And the tail. Because it needed to be warm, too, obviously.

When Hajime joined him, it was with his back turned to him, and a considerable amount of space between the two. Or, rather, between him and the tail, because it was presently in the middle.

A long stretch of silence passed, before Tooru found it in him to admit, in a whisper, that the tail was actually kind of beginning to smell.

And, yet, he still refused to put it on the floor.

Bad smells aside, the two fell asleep relatively quickly. A day of exploring hot caves and avoiding... well, death, could do that to a person, after all.

Hajime was snoring, and that was nothing new. Tooru was used to it, and fell asleep better to white noise than complete silence, anyway. Even if it was a little too loud and had, on occasion, drawn wild animals to their tent when they had to camp out some nights.

Still, it rarely ever woke Tooru, as he slept like a rock more so than any Goron he’d ever met. He hardly ever made a sound, and hardly moved once he was passed out. Now, he was laying on his back, mostly to keep his facial injuries free of any extra contact. One arm was still slung around the stupid tail laying on his chest, and despite the smell, his mouth was parted open slightly, as it always was in his sleep.

And, deep sleeper as he was, even if Hajime’s snoring hadn’t been there to drown it out, it was to be expected that Tooru didn’t hear the slight creak of the window being pried open from the outside.

Nor would he have noticed the movements of someone beside the bed, silently lifting his bag and sword off the floor.

What _did_ finally wake him up, was a shout and too-much movement from Hajime, abruptly followed by a pained cry from someone else. Tooru jolted up, and found Hajime standing on the bed, bow and arrow in hand and aimed at an unfamiliar figure, all but their eyes masked by black cloth.

The person was on one knee, a hand covering where blood was seeping through their pant leg. A discarded arrow lay on the floor, with red coating its tip and speckling the wood boards beneath it. Beside them, was Tooru’s bag, on its side with pieces of dodongo scales falling out over his sword.

The window was open, casting soft moonlight onto the whole scene. Beyond it, Tooru saw a flash shadow duck out of sight.

 _“Leave,”_ Hajime threatened, pulling back on the bowstring.

The person narrowed their already slit-like eyes on him. They said nothing. Didn’t move. Only watched them in still, silence.

Hajime clicked his tongue. “Can you _hear?”_

Still, no response. Tooru set the tail aside and slipped off the edge of the bed. His shield remained untouched, so he plucked that from the floor while he eyed the intruder. He thought he saw their gaze flicker, away from Hajime and himself, toward the window.

Smoke filled the room, then, building out from behind Hajime. With a strangled sound, he was pulled back, with someone else’s hand over his mouth, and another at his throat. His aim was thrown off, and with the release of the bow, the arrow went zipping past the person on the ground, and out the window.

The smoke had quickly cleared around Hajime and the second intruder. This person’s face was concealed just like the other.

In the faint light, Tooru saw a glint of metal between their fingers, brushing the skin of Hajime’s neck.

Tooru raised his hands in surrender, but the person holding Hajime captive nodded to the shield still at his arm.

“Okay, okay,” Tooru said, holding the shield out in front of him with both hands, “I’ll put this down, and promise not to bash you over the head with it. Then you can both leave, and we’ll pretend none of this happened, right?”

That, apparently, was not the plan. He saw smoke from the corner of his eye. The person on the ground had reappeared outside the window, and was stumbling out of sight with Tooru’s bag and sword in their possession.

Tooru cursed, and when smoke filled the space around Hajime again, the person holding him captive vanished, and Tooru ran for the window. He climbed out, bumped his leg on the frame on the way, but paid no mind to it. A few more bruises weren’t going to matter much, at this point.

As he ran, smoke formed in his path, and he lunged into the cloud of it. He collided with something solid, and pushed it to the ground with him.

The one who took his things was long out of sight, but the second intruder was now flat on their stomach beneath him, arms pinned to the ground by Tooru’s hands.

Tooru pulled those arms back, keeping them pressed against the guy’s back with one hand while he ripped the thin hood from their head, revealing short, black curls and tan, pointed ears. Without having to see the culprit’s face, he had a pretty good idea of where he’d seen that stupid, pretty hair before.

Tooru clicked his tongue. "And here I thought you were being all helpful, telling us where we could sell those scales."

The guy could barely turn his head enough to look at him, but Tooru could tell he'd earned a glare.

Said glare became a wide-eyed look as an arrow whizzed past.

Smoke had announced the entrance of Curly Hair's fox-eyed asshole friend - or at least that's who Tooru assumed had gone off with their shit. What had he called him back in the inn? Aki?

Whatever.

When Aki appeared this time, it was without the sword and bag he'd just run off with, and with an arrow in the thigh, courtesy of Hajime. Still, he'd managed to produce a small shower of throwing knives, all of them aimed Tooru's way.

What Tooru would have liked to do, was lift Curly Hair up and use him as a shield, but Curly Hair wasn't exactly a willing participant, and there was only so much planning one could do in the short amount of time it took for some knives to dig themselves into one’s face.

What he did, instead, was roll off the other with a pathetic sort of squawk, avoiding the tiny blades, but allowing Curly Hair to scramble to his feet and disappear in a burst of smoke.

By the time Tooru had pulled himself to his knees, neither of them were in sight.

He and Hajime stared down the lifeless mountain path for a long moment, before Tooru flopped back onto his side in the dirt, groaning out a long, unnecessary groan.

Hajime took him by the arm and dragged him back to his feet.

"That was all our rupees," he whined.

Hajime brushed dirt off Tooru's arm. "We've got tons at home. We can find something to eat in the woods, in the morning."

"But the scales."

"I know..."

"But my _sword."_ Tooru's voice came close to cracking on the word. He had tons of weapons and gear back home, much of it stolen, but this one was different. Hajime had often teased him for treating the damned thing like a precious pet, rather than a hunk of metal. It had its own display stand and everything.

Hajime moved behind him and pushed him back toward the window. "I told you not to bring that out with us. You should've listened."

Rather than climbing through the inn window, Tooru flung himself so far he hung pathetically over its frame. "It's a _sword,_ Hajime! I couldn't just let it sit on display forever! It feels the best to fight with."

Hajime backed himself against Tooru's rear and pushed until he fell into the room.

Tooru pulled himself up to sit on the floor. "What even _were_ those guys? Their clothes looked like the sorta thing you see in old Sheikah art."

"Minus the crests." Hajime tossed his bow and quiver on the bed. "The Sheikah we've met never pulled vanishing acts like that, though."

The Sheikah they'd met were also a peaceful people who wouldn't have condoned theft. Stories of them using magic and technology were older than Tooru or Hajime, from when they had supposedly served the former royal family. Tooru had always assumed that, if the stories were true, that their tricks would have been nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Well, the smoke part was right, at least.

He pouted at the window, like it might somehow produce his favorite sword if he stared long enough.

"Just go back to sleep," Hajime said with a yawn. "There's no telling where they went, and we don't have food or money on us, now. I just wanna go home as soon as possible."

"You think I can sleep now?"

"You wanna chase after them? Cross your fingers and pick a direction, then."

Tooru turned his pout to Hajime, who was already pulling himself back beneath the covers. He knew he didn't mean it, because Hajime knew that if Tooru decided to do something, he wouldn't stop until Hajime tracked him down and dragged him back home. In this case, words aside, he'd be dragged back within a few minutes. Probably seconds. He might not even make it out the window.

He reluctantly climbed back into bed, instead. "...I know where we can find out more about those guys."

Hajime grunted, likely in hopes that Tooru would drop it until morning, and just as likely that he knew where he meant.

Tooru did drop it, but he didn't sleep.

He spent the night staring at various less-than-interesting spots on the walls and ceiling, or touching the not-quite-healed marks all over his face, until a loud pounding came at their door.

Hajime sat up and offered the wall a sleepy glare, while Tooru snatched up his shield and cracked the door open.

The stable owner stood there, furious, with a few of the inn's occupants that Tooru vaguely recognized from the day before.

"A few of my guests have reported missing items since last night," the innkeep informed them.

Hajime cursed from the bed and fumbled around for his shirt.

Tooru offered the brightest of smiles. "That's interesting, because some of our belongings seem to have disappeared, as well!"

They didn't seem to be buying such a claim, despite it being an honest one, for once. The Goron among the group was pounding a fist into his palm, and the other Hylians among them didn't seem much more pleased.

What transpired next was a bit of a mess, of which included Tooru slamming the door shut, the Goron busting it off the hinges, the innkeep yelling at the Goron for doing so, and Tooru and Hajime hurriedly snatching up what little belongings of theirs remained in the room.

Said mess also included Tooru whacking someone over the head with his shield, and Hajime firing off an arrow at the floor. Ice spread out from where it struck, allowing them enough of an opening to escape out the window.

They found themselves running, away from the path and among tall, rocky structures, until they came across an old, abandoned outpost a short ways off the road. Walls stood where buildings had once been, with their wood rotting and full of holes.

Hajime fell on his ass and leaned back against what might have once been a table, but was now just a pile of junk.

He worked to catch his breath, while Tooru stood against the wall, staring down the way they'd came.

"We lost them a while back," Hajime assured him.

Tooru wasn't too worried about that, though. He was more mortified over a different realization.

"The tail."

"What?"

When he turned to Hajime, it was with the slow, heart stricken movement one might use in preparing themselves to deliver the news of a loved one passed away. “We left the tail.” He sounded about ready to cry. “We left the _tail,_ Hajime.”

Maybe it was disbelief Hajime was watching him with. Maybe it was pity. Maybe Tooru was a little too worked up over an appendage of a creature that was, realistically, probably the _least_ valuable part of it.

But the scales were gone. Their money-- or what they had brought with them, was gone. _His sword was gone._ That gorgeous, dark blade that he’d worked _so hard_ to get his hands on. Gone.

And they didn’t even have the stupid dodongo tail to show for it.

“I guess we’ll have to shave off your hair and sell that.”

Tooru tossed a small, loose piece of wood from the floor at him.

“Look.” Hajime flicked the nonthreatening projectile away. “I’m pissed too, okay? We can sit around and mope about it, and hope none of those travelers from the stable find us, or we can move on with the next thing.”

 _“Or,”_ Tooru began, searching the place for something to suffice as a temporary weapon, “we make that next thing getting some dirt on those two.”

 _“Or_ the next thing could be going home, resting, then finding some other place or person to steal from.”

 _“Or_ we could be heading toward Castle Town.” Tooru grabbed the end of a toppled chair’s leg. He stepped down on the seat and ripped the leg off, raising the fragile thing like he’d just pulled the legendary hero’s sword out of the ground himself. He pointed the chair leg at Hajime. “We go you-know-where, and relax there, with a few drinks, and find out how to get our revenge.”

Hajime didn’t seem to impressed by the chair leg. “How are we paying for these drinks?”

“With my dazzling charisma, of course.”

“You’re not getting us free drinks with that face. No one’s drinking when it’s almost morning, either.”

With an indignant puff of air, Tooru pointed the leg away from Hajime, and out past the dilapidated walls of the outpost, southward, where a moderate trek would lead them straight to Hyrule Castle and its surrounding town. Their map was gone along with their other belongings, but Tooru was still fairly confident in his sense of direction.

If Hajime felt less confident, he didn’t voice it. Tooru had mentioned that it wasn’t too far from home, anyway, so they might as well make one more stop on the way back. “At least we’d get _something_ out of this trip,” he’d insisted.

They set out toward town on foot, sleep deprived, without a map, or food, or any sort of useful weapon, save Hajime’s bow and arrows, and a shitty piece of wood that Tooru insisted on keeping at his side until he could find something more suitable.

The heat became more tolerable the further they made it from the mountain, and was just about nonexistent by the time the towering castle came into view. The temperature became comfortable, and the rocky roads gave way to greener paths, with trees scattered along the way, some with fruit that they would inevitably stop to feast upon.

The trees grew closer together, more full with their bright, green leaves, the further the path went on, then faded out again, into the grassy, once-welcoming fields of Hyrule.

Now, they weren’t quite so welcoming, with soldiers donned in black and red stalking the land, scaring off most anyone less than loyal to those in power. Castle Town itself, supposedly once a place open to the public, with festivals and merriment to be shared with all of Hyrule, was now heavily under guard.

A blackish haze hovered over it all, darker at the center, just above the castle’s highest tower. It had always been that way, ever since Tooru could remember. Stories of it being anything else were just stories to him, to Hajime, to most Hylians who still breathed to this day.

Another family had ruled this place, some couple hundred years back. The same that the Sheikah were said to have served. Tooru often wondered what the castle really looked like, when they had been in power, before their daughter and her appointed knight had met their ends. He’d only ever seen paintings, worn with age, and each too different from the other to be a true depiction.

He’d also often wondered what sort of treasures they kept inside that place, but trying to find out first hand would be begging for death.

“It’s kinda weird.” Hajime’s words interrupted Tooru’s thoughts. He stood beside him, at the top of a hill, overlooking the castle shrouded in darkness. “You always forget how ominous it feels out here, until you come back.”

Except, Tooru never did. He offered a small hum of acknowledgement, and started down the side of the hill, away from the castle.

They wouldn’t be going into town, exactly. Where they were headed, was a small establishment stationed along the outskirts of town, where the soldiers watched with a suspicious eye, but with far less defense than at Castle Town’s gates.

It was a small building, with a single, unlit lantern out front. It was quiet when they arrived, with only one horse left outside to wait for its rider at the posts, and without the loud, boisterous sort of conversation that could usually be heard from within around nighttime.

It was early, and they’d likely only just opened for the day. Tooru noted the missing sign above the door. The wood of the frame looked disturbed, like something had been thrown at it, recently. But, then, fights around here were common, and it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d seen the property damaged.

He swung the door open, grinning despite how he both looked and felt like absolute shit.

The tavern wasn’t quite as empty as it looked from the outside. A few tables had occupants, though there were only about five people in total. Two of them were ignoring their surroundings, while the other three were casually watching a duo across from the bar, where a small platform was set up. Usually, said platform was host to bad singing performances during the night, when the bar was more lively. Currently, two people were messing with props and instruments, preparing for whatever show they had in store.

The bar itself was empty, save for the man behind it, meticulously arranging the glasses on the shelf, as if he were running a fancy restaurant, and not a rundown, shady joint on the outskirts of town.

While the duo on the platform fussed with their setup, clumsily dropping props here and there, Hajime offered them a look of pity, while Tooru decided not to be bothered with them, and moseyed on over to the bar, instead.

While the guy behind the bar continued to rearrange glasses, Tooru sat himself down on a wooden stool, crossed one leg over the other, and propped his elbows on the counter. He rested his chin over his laced fingers with a sly look about him.

“Keeping busy, are we, Tetsu?”

The man didn’t even have to turn around to face Tooru. Recognition was evident in his posture, just at the sound of his voice.

He set down the glass he’d been holding. When he did turn around, it was with a grin even more troubling than Tooru’s. Maybe it was his expression itself, or maybe it was just the way part of it was hidden, with messy black hair shielding one eye.

“If you’re here this early in the day,” he said, setting his hands on the counter and leaning over it, toward Tooru, “You’ve _gotta_ have a good story for me.”

Tooru parted his lips in preparation to describe the prior night’s events. He’d overexaggerate the details a bit, maybe. Tetsurou liked exciting stories, and “Some assholes came and stole our stolen shit” alone wasn’t exciting enough. It also made them sound pathetic. Maybe it _was_ a little pathetic.

Two things kept him from beginning his story, however. The first, when Tetsurou interrupted him, face all scrunched up like he was trying to hide either disgust or laughter, or maybe both, and he asked, “The fuck happened to your face?”

The second, was the sudden screeching of a poorly played flute from the platform across the room. The three of them cringed, but offered the performing duo their attention. One of them looked (unfortunately) prepared to play the flute some more, while the other was now sporting hand puppets, of all things.

Hajime pointed a thumb at them as he turned to Tetsurou. “Your daytime entertainment?”

“They begged me for a place to practice. I was too nice to say no.”

Hajime didn’t look convinced. “So, they bribed you?”

“They bribed me.”

Tooru turned his nose upward as the flute picked up again. It was easing into something more tolerable, but he’d still heard better music from drunken travelers in this place in the late hours. “A place to practice _what,_ exactly?”

Tetsurou made a sound that said he wasn’t so sure, himself. The few people at the tables seemed interested, at any rate.

Tooru couldn’t help but keep his eyes trained on them, himself, as the one with the puppets began to dance and sing along with the flute in a way that was a little more impressive than the flute playing itself.

 _“Come ‘round, come now, haven’t you heard?_  
_There’s a threat to our kingdom about, that’s the word.”_

He waved the two puppets about, and their likenesses to a certain princess and knight depicted along with the old stories of the Sheikah were all too clear, even if the puppet’s faces looked a bit… odd. Comical. As if they’d purposely been made to make the characters look unintelligent, with eyes looking in different directions, and doofy, squiggly mouths. Still, the pointed ears and signature blonde hair were unmistakable from the stories.

 _“A princess and hero, or so they were named,_  
_May soon be reborn, as legend has claimed._  
_But fear not, we say, for you know what this means?_  
_With their rebirth comes another, and it’s that of our King’s.”_

The music had become something more recognizable. Still not _good,_ but definitely a melody that anyone in Hyrule would recognize. Tooru’s own mother had hummed it, lulled him to sleep with it in his earliest memories.

It made him feel sick to this day.

The one with the puppets dipped his head low, stepped back over a box on the platform, and tapped his toe against some sort of trigger on the back of it. The box flipped open, and out popped another puppet, this one half the height of the man himself, all dark and menacing, with red hair and a black crown. It was detailed, and far more flattering than the silly things he was wearing on his hands. The designs upon the crown were reminiscent of those on Tooru’s sword. Well, what _was_ his sword.

 _“And when he returns, our kingdom will flourish,_  
_And those who stand in his way, will be sure to…”_

He spun around, and once he was facing the lack of crowd again, something clicked, and the heads of the princess and hero popped off.

_“...Perish.”_

The puppet heads rolled from the platform, onto the tavern floor. The princess’s stopped somewhere near the tables, while the hero’s rolled past them a short ways, it’s silly face staring back at Tooru when it came to a stop. One eye was beginning to peel off its poorly made face.

“You can’t rhyme ‘flourish’ with ‘perish,’” Tetsurou muttered from behind the counter.

Still, the five guests applauded their act, whether out of genuine enjoyment, or pity. The performers took their bows, and went on with rambling about their plans to travel Hyrule, to educate young Hylians on their kingdom’s history through shows such as this.

Tooru scoffed and turned in his seat to lean on the counter again. He caught Hajime’s warning gaze, and refrained from saying anything out loud on the matter.

“You can’t expect much else, this close to Castle Town,” Hajime reminded him. It seemed like he was always reminding him, whenever they came here. People loved to talk about it, the return of their awaited king. Their prince of darkness. They talked about him like he was a god, of whom’s followers in the castle were just warming the throne for until he came back.

They’d been warming that seat for some couple hundred years, now. Meanwhile, anyone who looked even remotely like the ‘false hero’ or ‘tyrant princess’ who had taken the king’s life with their own in those legends, was put to death, even at a young age, to keep history from repeating itself.

It was the norm, but even thieves like Tooru and Hajime found it sickening. They were just lucky to not be born blonde, they supposed.

“So…” Tetsurou snapped a finger in Tooru’s face. “...you gonna keep glaring at the counter, or you gonna tell me why you came wandering into my business at the crack of dawn, with your face looking like a Goron rolled over it?”

Hajime snorted. “Told ya.”

Tooru shooed Hajime off with a hand, to no success. “We ran into a problem in Eldin last night.”

“A few problems,” Hajime added.

Tetsurou nodded in understanding. “It _was_ a Goron, then?”

“I-- The problem in question has nothing to do with my _face.”_

“Really? ‘Cause that sure looks like a problem to me.”

Tooru placed the tip of his finger to Tetsurou’s forehead and pushed him back, putting some space between them. “The problem, is that something very important was stolen from us last night, and you get dirt on shady people all day long in this place.”

Tetsurou folded his arms, watching Tooru with a lazy grin. “Like you guys.”

Tooru put a hand to his chest. “We’re pure as fairy fountain water. And someone has stolen this pure, innocent soul’s favorite sword.”

Tetsurou laughed at those claims, toning down the volume only when the guests making chatter with the performers glanced back at him. “Someone stole your already stolen shit, then?”

“That’s so rude. You don’t know how I got that sword.” Tooru decided to ignore the perfectly reasonable raised brow he received. “The point is, I figured you’d be a good starting place, if I want some information on these people.”

Tetsurou inclined his head, waiting for him to go on. Hajime was subtly watching the others in the establishment, perhaps making sure that no one was paying them too much attention.

Tooru set his chin back on his hands. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “Tetsu, I’m going to need your help in tracking a pair of Sheikah.”


	2. Heroes of Sparks and Arrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hajime does not think that one sword is worth all this trouble.
> 
> Yet, he's still going along with Tooru's bullshit. So, there's that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't usually warn for gore and stuff in my fics, but since I rated this T and not M for once, I guess I will:
> 
> Minor gory description in the paragraph beginning with "He leapt to the side and cursed himself for the late timing."

Hajime was convinced that Tetsurou's laugh could bring down an entire building.

It started out small, in little, amused breaths that shook his shoulders, while Tooru recounted the events in Eldin, and the performers packed up their props and took their leave. The rest of the guests filtered out shortly after, leaving just the three of them in the establishment.

Now, Tetsurou was hollering, head thrown back and all. He sounded like such a jackass, Hajime thought. And by that, he meant a literal, actual donkey.

"You... You guys..." he managed between bouts of laughter, "...are the worst thieves to ever thieve."

Hajime wanted to defend their honor, really, but he wasn't all too sure how he could.

"It's not our fault we can't ninja our way around like  _ some _ people!" was Tooru's defense. He slammed a fist on the bar, too, for added effect, but Tetsurou only laughed harder.

"You got swindled by an innkeeper! And out-thieved by some Sheikah? You got out-thieved by Hyrule’s Most Peaceful?”

"They weren't peaceful! They tried to cut Hajime's throat and took my sword!"

"This is up there with that time with the Gorons, huh?" Tetsurou grinned at them, shoulders still shaking. Tooru pouted.

"No, he can't top the Goron thing," Hajime said.

Tooru slid his hands across the counter and planted his face on it with a distressed whine. "I just want my sword..." he mumbled into the wood.

Tetsurou stepped around the counter to retrieve the dishes abandoned by earlier guests. "Go steal a new sword. Or, better yet, buy one, like a respectable person."

Tooru turned his cheek against the table just enough to watch Tetsurou. "We just paid extra for a room that we got  _ kicked out of, _ and you want us to spend  _ more  _ rupees?"

Hajime huffed and cast a glance Tooru’s way. "You could buy or steal twenty swords, and it wouldn't matter, anyway."

Tetsurou returned with a stack of dirty dishes. "What's so great about the one they took?"

"It's my  _ favorite," _ Tooru stressed, as if that were enough of an explanation on its own.

"It's royal guard material," Hajime elaborated. "Literally. We think. We thought it might've actually belonged to the castle, at some point, which is why I kept telling this idiot not to go swinging it around in public, to begin with."

"I wasn't! Two assholes snuck into our room and took it!" Tooru smushed his face down against the counter again, muffling the last few words.

Tetsurou looked close to dropping the dishes. He didn't, and instead carefully set them down behind the counter while he watched the two of them with wide eyes. "You didn't... You didn't steal from one of the  _ guards, _ right? You said you  _ think _ it's royal, so you didn't,  _ right?" _

"Hinox," they both replied, in unison, though Tooru's voice was still muffled.

Hajime recalled the whole fiasco with a cringe. The enormous, ogre-esque creature had been sleeping at the foot of a hill, with what looked like a royal sword and shield dangling from the enormous jewelry around its flabby neck. Wherever the weapons had come from, the creature undoubtedly slaughtered its original owner to get them.

And there was Tooru, at the top of the hill, declaring,  _ "I want those," _ which Hajime had translated to,  _ "I'm bombing the Hinox, don't stop me." _

He'd translated correctly.

Tetsurou laughed at the pained look Hajime made at the memory. "Hinox. Dodongos. I see you've broadened your horizons. Stealing from people  _ and _ monsters, now."

"Monsters are easier," Tooru said, "You can just... slice 'em up, and then take their stuff."

When Tetsurou raised a brow, Hajime added, "We'd feel mildly bad about cutting a person to ribbons, in most cases."

Tetsurou laughed. "But not for robbing them?"

Tooru waved his hand with a dismissive,  _ "Meh.” _

Tetsurou shook his head and got to cleaning an empty mug. "Okay, so, Sheikah thieves, right? And you expect  _ me _ to know something about them?"

"I think he was hoping you'd at least have a contact who might," Hajime said, and Tooru finally sat upright to nod properly in agreement. "You don't usually let us down, there."

"Yikes," Tetsurou snorted and moved onto the next dish, "Pressure. What if I don't know anyone?"

Hajime folded his arms. "You know every living shit stain in Hyrule."

With another bark of laughter, Tetsurou gestured from Tooru to Hajime with the half-clean plate. "Those shit stains include you guys, you know."

Tooru scrunched his nose at the name-calling. "You're both disgusting."

"You're the shit stains, not me," Tetsurou said, then studied Tooru’s cuts and scrapes. "But, judging by your face, I guess you could be a blood stain or something instead, if you wanted."

"I'm not any sort of stain!"

"No, you are," Hajime supplied, "You're impossible to be rid of and stubborn as fuck. Like a stain."

Tooru looked absolutely offended, while Tetsurou laughed, and Hajime continued to wonder if the ceiling would collapse for the sheer sound of it.

Tetsurou grinned at Hajime and pointed at Tooru. "But you haven't tried washing this stain out."

Hajime shrugged. "I like dirt, I guess?"

_ "I hate you," _ Tooru mouthed at him, with a false look of anger that Hajime knew meant just the opposite.

"Gross," Tetsurou said, but he looked utterly amused.

Hajime attempted to get them back on track. "So, you know anyone? Even just a rumor or... something."

Tetsurou's gaze wandered while he thought it over. He pursed his lips as he scrubbed at another dish. "Have you tried Kakariko?"

Tooru belted out the fakest laugh Hajime had ever heard, which was a feat, coming from him. "Yes, Tetsu, let's just wander into  _ Sheikah territory _ and demand the thieves show themselves." He cupped his hands around his mouth to project,  _ "Any of you steal any swords lately?" _

"Okay, okay!" Tetsurou sighed. "Somewhere  _ near _ Kakariko wouldn't be a bad bet, though."

He still looked deep in thought. Hajime sincerely hoped he was searching through some mental list of contacts. Tooru was not going to let this go until he got that damned sword back. The sooner they found these guys, the sooner they could go home and have a proper meal and rest.

"There's a farm a little ways from the village," Tetsurou supplied after some consideration. "Kinda off the main road, tucked away in the woods, y'know? They sell their stock in Kakariko pretty often. A guy that works there who passes through here on business, sometimes."

Hajime had threaded his fingers and leaned into them, brows furrowed with suspicion. Tooru voiced the question on his mind before he had the chance.

“Isn’t this a bit of a trip from Kakariko?” he asked, while he inspected his nails. They were still filthy from the caves and general travel.

He’d sounded just as skeptical as Hajime felt. Maybe it had less to do with some farm boy traveling, and more to do with a farmer traveling anywhere near shitholes like Tetsurou’s place.

“There are a lot of farms around here closer than that. It’d be stupid of him to come all  _ this _ way just to sell some milk.” Tooru glanced up from his fingers to lock eyes with Tetsurou. “Unless he’s smuggling something in egg crates.”

“That ain’t  _ my _ business.” Tetsurou leaned over the counter between the two of them. “But I  _ do _ know the guy’s involved in some kinda shady shit. He’s a real loudmouth, y’know? Gets drunk off his ass every time he stops by here, and goes off on these long, braggy stories. He’s one of the highlights of the job, honestly. Kinda wish he’d come by more.”

“We didn’t ask you to gush about your crushes, Tetsu.”

Tetsurou waved Tooru off, and settled his attention on Hajime, instead. “The point is, he’s always bragging about this pretty guy from Kakariko he’s been seeing. And, since the guy’s kinda shady, I can’t imagine anyone getting all close and personal with him if they weren’t a little shady themselves.”

Tooru’s face had lit up with something outright devious, and Hajime might have found it attractive under other circumstances. Well, no, it was still attractive, because Tooru was  _ always _ stupidly attractive, even with his face scarred up from a dodongo scuffle.

It just would have been more attractive in the bedroom than in this thing he was about to be dragged into.

“So your loud friend might know something about our shady Sheikah.” Tooru pressed his palms to the counter and stood from his seat. He leaned closer to Tetsurou, looking all too thrilled with the news. “And how do we find this farm, again?”

Tetsurou’s answer didn’t come until some negotiating later, something that Hajime and Tooru weren’t exactly accustomed to in his establishment. Tetsurou liked them, for some reason that even Hajime couldn’t comprehend, and usually just dropped whatever gossip he had without hesitation.

Apparently, he liked this other guy, too, because he made them  _ swear _ they were just going to look for the dumb sword, and not chop off any farmer heads in the process, before he gave them any useful directions.

“Like I said,” Hajime insisted, “Not too big on slicing people up, if we can avoid it.”

“We want their stuff, not their guts.”

When they left, it was with a hastily-drawn map, and a pity meal to soothe their grumbling stomachs.

The good news, aside from the food, was that Tooru no longer seemed to be seething over the loss of his favorite weapon.

The bad news, was that the spring in his step and the way his smile stretched his face were considerably  _ more _ terrifying than any amount of seething he could have done.

It wasn’t the same as Tooru finding some treasure or getting away with a particularly successful steal. It wasn’t the same as his  _ “That looks bombable” _ sort of excitement, either. The bomb-excitement was also concerning, but it was a very different sort of concerning from  _ this _ .

“How many ice arrows do you have left, Hajime?” When Hajime didn’t respond, he continued anyway. “I bet a Sheikah can’t pull those disappearing acts if they’re frozen solid. I wonder how they do that. Do you think there’re some kind of magic hand signs involved? How hard is it to shoot someone in the hand with an arrow?”

“Did you just plan on getting the sword, or is this becoming a revenge thing, too?”

“I’m just planning ahead, Hajime. I want us to be prepared, so these guys don’t get away  _ again  _ when we find them.”

“And you want to get back at them.”

“And I want to get back at them.” Tooru had been walking on ahead, energy renewed from the meal. Hajime still thought they could stand for some extra sleep, but Tooru spun around with a smile too blindingly bright to allow for such a thing. “But just a little! I’ll keep my promise to Tetsu. No chopping off any heads. I promise.”

“I’m more worried about  _ your _ head,” Hajime admitted.

Tooru waved him off, and marched down the path, Kakariko-bound. He didn’t consult the map this time, either. They’d been there before, to the small village tucked away within the mountain.

Granted, they had only been there  _ once _ . It had only been once, because despite the welcoming ways of the Sheikah people, and the calming environment they called home, with all their trees and pretty lanterns, Tooru had mentioned not being able to shake the feeling the entire time that they were being  _ watched _ .

Neither of them had expected that to actually have anything to do with magic or the old depictions of the Sheikah at the time, but it was enough to keep them from stealing anything their whole visit, and they hadn’t gone back, since.

And that was fine, because for the time being, they weren’t set for Kakariko Village itself. Just some little farm nearby.

What was less fine, was the amount of walking involved in said travels.

_ “‘Not a problem. We can walk. A hike through Eldin never hurt anyone.’” _ Hajime’s words were a recap of Tooru’s from before they’d set out for the caves in the first place, but with less of Tooru’s fake-ass confidence, and more grumbling. 

“I’m  _ sorry _ I didn’t plan on getting our things stolen!” Tooru tossed his hands up into the air. Hajime was beside him, now, in perfect range for Tooru to shoot him a petulant little pout. “And I didn’t plan on our friends running off with our horses. Thank  _ them _ when we get back.”

“I wanna know what they’re doing that requires  _ four _ horses, to begin with.” Hajime scrunched his own nose at the thought. They’d woken up before their own departure with two missing roommates, no horses, and a note dangling from the curtains that divided Hajime’s room from the rest of the hideout.

_ “I know you guys have a trip today, but we kinda need the horses more than you right now. Found a lead that’s gonna get us richer than your dumb volcano thing. You owe us from that time you left us without the grappling hooks anyway. Try not to fall into any lava. _

_ P.S. if you guys fall in lava i call dibs on tooru’s weapon stash _

_ P.S.S. If you guys get blown up ‘cause of Tooru I call dibs on the not-weapon stashes.” _

The whole note was covered with sloppily-drawn hearts, and it was easy to make out whose handwriting was whose. The majority of it was Takahiro’s, aside from the weapon’s comment, which was undeniably Issei’s. That guy had been eyeing Tooru’s stupid royal sword since day one.

In any case, it hadn’t been the end of the world at the time, because it was meant to just be one short trip, and not some wild goose chase after some Sheikah thieves.

“Should’ve nabbed us some horses before we ditched that inn,” Tooru muttered as he kicked a pebble in his path.

“You didn’t even grab your gross lizard tail. It’s safe to say we had other things on our minds.”

Tooru made a noise that was probably supposed to make Hajime pity him, but instead just came across as what a drunken baby would probably sound like, so Hajime snorted out a short laugh, instead.

The trail to Kakariko Village wasn’t as lively as usual. The progressively graying sky might have had something to do with it. Hajime just hoped that they’d find this farm before the rain came. They’d had enough misfortune for one trip without the addition of crawling around Hyrule like wet, hungry dogs.

Well, maybe not so hungry. Tetsurou was pretty generous with their meal. Hajime was fairly certain he’d heard Tooru’s stomach growl at least once since then, though.

They found themselves on a wooded path, eventually. Trees surrounded them, with small, blue birds flitting and singing about among the leaves, and squirrels poking their heads out from the grass to watch them pass through. There was a pile of charred sticks on the side of the road, likely a camp made by another traveler, already abandoned for some time now.

It was after they’d passed a rock that looked comically like an old man’s face that Tooru finally took out the directions Tetsurou had given them. They were close.

“He said to look out for this tree after we pass that rock.” He pointed to a rough sketch of a tree on the page. It looked like there was a second tree growing out of it, curving awkwardly while the first stood relatively straight.

“Should be hard to miss,” Hajime commented, eyes skimming the path as they pressed onward.

As it turned out, it was easy to miss. The tree itself was massive, and looked pretty dang close to what Tetsurou had drawn up. It would’ve been an impressive drawing, even, if only he had mentioned the fact that it was off the path, shrouded by more trees and shrubbery. They walked up and down the same section of road about five times before finally catching sight of it.

They abandoned the path at that point and wandered further into the woods. This was still a good ways from Kakariko. Not nearly as close to the village as they’d gathered, from Tetsurou’s description.

Judging from the road, the woods looked much thicker than they really were. There was plenty of space between clusters of trees, and enough distinct landmarks to ensure they wouldn’t get  _ terribly _ lost. Tetsurou had said to keep traveling south until they saw yellow flowers, but the only thing in sight so far were greens and blues.

“He didn’t say how far we’d be walking until we find these flowers, did he?”

Tooru squinted at the map, then shook his head.

_ Great _ .

Hajime’s legs were already getting sore, but that probably had to do more with the prior day’s travels than today’s. Still, when Tetsurou had said  _ “kinda off the road,” _ he hadn’t expected this long of a walk. Resting seemed like a stupid idea when the sky peeking through the leaves above looked a much darker gray than before.

“Yellow,” Tooru said after some silent wandering. Hajime perked up at that, until he saw that Tooru’s brows were furrowed, and the yellow he’d spotted hadn’t been the flowers they were looking for.

At the base of a short, thin tree, an arrow stuck out from the wood. It wasn’t the sort of spot one would find an arrow buried from plain old target practice, unless someone was just a really lousy shot.

_ Could’ve been a hunter, _ Hajime told himself, but the fact that what he could see of the arrow’s tip was a bright, blinding yellow was not comforting.

Tooru nudged him, and pointed past the tree, to the much larger ones clustered behind it, all of them with yellow arrows buried in various spots of wood.

Some stupid part of Hajime considered walking straight up to those trees and plucking the arrows for himself. Shock arrows weren’t exactly easy to come by, or cheap, for that matter.

The more sensible part of him prevented him from doing so, and had his eyes darting in search of whoever could have been responsible for shooting them.

Tetsurou said this farmer was probably involved with some shady people. Maybe they should have come more prepared. Should have stopped by the hideout and got another sword for Tooru, at the very least. Maybe restocked on some bombs. Maybe--

He forgot what the next “maybe” was when he heard a low growl from among the trees.

They exchanged glances, both wide-eyed, equal parts afraid and pissed, because Tetsurou did  _ not _ warn them about anything dangerous outside of some shady farmer business.

“What was--” they both began to ask, just as another rumble shook the trees. Leaves fluttered down around them at the very sound, and Hajime was already reaching for his bow.

He drew an arrow, ready to aim, but he couldn’t find whatever he was supposed to be aiming  _ at _ . Tooru stood on the defensive, his shield before him. Hajime was too focused on finding the threat to look at him, but he could feel Tooru’s frustration over his lack of weapon just fine. He was likely gnawing his bottom lip right now.

They went still, and the rumbling came to an end. The birds had taken their chirping elsewhere, and the woods felt eerily quiet, save for the sound of their own concentrated, steady breaths.

There was a shift. A rustling of leaves. Then a concoction of crackling and chirping that did not belong to any sort of bird.

Lightning whizzed between them both, and a new, yellow arrow lodged itself in the tree behind them.

With only a startled  _ “shit” _ from Hajime, the two bolted in separate directions. He fired off a few arrows in hopes of hitting something, but he still couldn’t spot their assailant through the trees.

But there was more crackling, more sounds like lightning without its thunder, filling the woods. Then came the snap of a bowstring, the swift sound of an arrow splitting the air, and a startled yelp from his partner.

_ Shit. _

He spun around and broke into a run after the sound. After Tooru. The closer he came, the thicker the plant life around his feet thrived. Prickly vines and thorns bit at his legs, but he didn’t pay them any mind, because for all the skill and fast thinking Tooru had, he currently did  _ not _ have a  _ fucking sword _ to defend himself with.

Among all the thorns threatening his path, there were bursts of yellow. He registered, briefly, that among that yellow were not only abandoned arrows, but scatterings of the bright petals they’d been searching for.

He disregarded the information just as quickly. Flowers were no longer top priority.

He stumbled to a stop among said flowers when he caught a glimpse of  _ it _ .

Black and red stood out among the yellow and green of the flowers and trees. A creature stood at least twice his height, with four massive, hooved legs planted firmly on the ground. It turned its head toward Hajime, a mane red as blood shifting and parting way to curved white horns and glowing, green eyes.

It had the face of a lion, with two arms as strong as the four horse-like legs carrying it. It had set its bow along its back in favor of drawing an axe-like sword as long as Hajime was tall.

It snarled, and Hajime’s jaw dropped at the sight of it. Vaguely, he could see Tooru backed up against the tree in front of it, slowly inching around its side while the creature was distracted by Hajime.

He hoped that Tooru had a plan, because fighting a lynel was a dumb idea even on a good day, much less one where they were short a sword and low on explosives.

Plan or no plan, Hajime had become the monster’s new target. It dismissed Tooru entirely, hooves stirring up dirt and petals as it turned to face Hajime straight on. It swung the sword to its side, and Hajime was absolutely certain it could have cut down an entire tree with the motion had it been close enough.

He swallowed, and that was all he had the chance to do before it came charging at him, weapon raised and ready to cut him down.

He leapt to the side and cursed himself for the late timing. He envisioned, all too vividly, the yellow of the flowers tarnished with the reds and pinks of his insides splattered among them. He foresaw his own body, strewn across the otherwise pretty forest floor, in pieces, while the monster turned its bloody blade onto Tooru.

But he was having these thoughts, so he couldn’t have been dead, he reasoned. Not yet.

The cut of the blade never came, but the monster’s enraged roar did. The sound merged with the equally loud boom of a bomb going off. Smoke flooded Hajime’s senses at the same time that a faceful of vines woke him up from his moment of panic.

Familiar fingers curled around his wrist and dragged him up from the ground. Hajime’s legs had trouble keeping up, at first, as Tooru pulled him out from the flower patch.

“West of the flowers!” Tooru said over the growl of the lynel. “The farm is west of the flowers!”

“Do you even know what direction we came from?!” Hajime was already turned around. He also couldn’t imagine a farm being so close to this thing’s territory.

“Quit underestimating me!” came Tooru’s reply. He yanked Hajime into a sharp turn at the sound of hooves growing nearer.

Except, he hadn’t been underestimating him at all. He knew Tooru knew this, but he still gave his hand a quick, reassuring squeeze before he slipped his own hand out from his grasp. “Game plan,” he said, almost demanding, while he drew out a bomb arrow.

“The game plan is  _ run.” _ Tooru picked up his pace at the sound of a shock arrow’s sparks.

Hajime dared a glance over his shoulder. The lynel had stopped in its chase, but had taken aim with its bow once again. Hajime cursed their luck, but never slowed in his tracks. When the arrow fired, it struck the ground, just narrowly missing his heel. He took his chance to fire one of his own after that, before it had a chance to send another shock arrow after them.

He aimed between the creature’s eyes, and another boom and a roar shook the trees when he hit his mark.

The lynel nearly collapsed, with only its hands on the ground to keep it from toppling over.

But that was no reason to celebrate. Lynels weren’t like hinoxes or dodongos, where a few well-timed explosions and slashes could take it down. They were much more resilient than that, and they’d already dealt with one too many monsters this trip as it was.

And if Tooru started going on about scavenging lynel parts now, Hajime was going to drag his ass back to their hideout himself, with or without his dumb sword reclaimed.

He feared, for a moment, that Tooru was about to do just that, when he stopped without warning in front of him. It was abrupt enough for Hajime to run right into his back. The two went toppling to the forest floor, but Tooru quickly pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.

Hajime rolled onto his side. “What are you  _ doing?” _ he groaned, thankful he hadn’t jabbed either Tooru or himself with his next arrow.

“What’s the next landmark?”

“What?”

“After the flowers! What was the next one?”

By the goddesses, couldn’t he be a little more concerned with just  _ staying alive, _ for once?

Hajime groaned and pushed himself up to his feet. He grabbed Tooru by the shirt and dragged him up with him, all while searching for any signs of the lynel. They were far clear of the flowers. He could only hope it had given up now that they were away from its territory.

Tooru was searching the area, too, but not for that. He bit his lip, and turned his head every which way, hoping for a sign of something more useful than trees.

“Don’t tell me you lost the directions.”

Tooru froze, then seemed to ponder something. He reached into his bag. “No, no, it’s still here. I think it’s, uh…” He trailed off, and Hajime followed his gaze when he stared for too long at some bushes.

Among those bushes, tufts of white stood out from the leaves, wild and untamed just as the lynel’s mane. Horns curled up from between the hair, and Hajime was certain he spotted another glint of green eyes.

He reached for another arrow, hands not nearly as shaky as he’d expected. A red-maned lynel was one threat, but a white-maned one was going to be a much,  _ much _ larger problem.

His hand stilled by his quiver when the creature shook its head in a very unnatural way. It bobbed, like it was balancing on something other than a neck and shoulders.

Now that he considered it, the thing was much too short to be a lynel, anyhow. It barely stood over the leaves of the bushes.

Two dark, very not-lynel hands reached up around the sides of its face. The fingers curled into the tufts, and with some struggling, lifted the head from its unsteady resting place.

The figure stepped out from the bushes, shorter than either of them, and holding the lynel head-- or mask, beside their hip.

Brown eyes stared back at Hajime and Tooru while they balked at the sight of the short girl standing before them. Reddish hair fell around a tan face, ending just at her bare shoulders. The top she wore ended just below her breasts, exposing her impressively toned abs. The girl was all muscle, and everything about her outfit, from the top to the curling designs of her pants, said  _ Gerudo. _

The only thing that didn’t was her  _ height _ .

_ “Vasaaq,” _ she said, with a weak wave of her free hand. She smiled with the greeting, but her eyes were half-lidded in a way that screamed suspicion.

Neither Hajime nor Tooru spoke the language of the Gerudo, but still, they each slowly raised a hand, not quite in a returning wave, but at least in acknowledgement.

“Your faces look like shit,” she said, in perfect Hylian, with her smile still in place.

Hajime reached up to touch his own face. He could feel some scratches from his fall in the vines, but there was no way it could’ve looked nearly as bad as Tooru’s still did.

She seemed pleased by his reaction. Her smile stretched wider. “Did you meet Walnut?”

Before either of them could question what the fuck that meant, the familiar roar of the lynel came from a distance. Both of them froze, and the tiny Gerudo whistled the way one would in place of saying,  _ “You sure fucked up.” _

She turned around, toward the bushes she’d come from, and set the oversized mask back on her head. She waved for them to follow, and pushed through the bushes.

They hesitated to move, at first, but then another roar came, and they found themselves chasing after her.

“I can show you back to the main road,” she said, voice somewhat muffled by the mask. “But it’ll cost you twenty rupees. Otherwise, I can leave ya here, and Walnut can come and getcha.”

Hajime really, truly, wanted to ask why anyone would name a lynel something as unimposing as  _ Walnut, _ but he settled on something else, instead. “We’re not looking for the main road.”

She looked over her shoulder, though Hajime couldn’t really tell what part of the mask exactly she was seeing out from. The eyes of the thing were made out of buttons. He felt a little dumb for mistaking it for the real deal, now that he’d noticed.

“What’re two voe like you doing wandering around here, then?”

Hajime had no idea what “voe” meant, and judging by the look Tooru gave the girl, he didn’t, either. They could at least tell she was referring to them, in any case.

“What’s a  _ Gerudo _ doing around here?” Tooru countered. “Aren’t you just as suspicious as we are?”

“You admit you’re suspicious, then?” She sounded… amused. She hummed a moment, and when Tooru just sort of sputtered instead of offering any reasonable response, she said, simply, “I live here.”

“In the woods,” Hajime said, not asked.

“That’s what  _ ‘here’ _ means, isn’t it?”

Hajime furrowed his brow. “There’s a farm here, right? Is there an entire village, or something?”

At that, the girl stopped. The lynel mask tilted back with a bob when she turned to him. “Farm?” There was something falsely innocent about the way she asked it.

Between that suspicious response and the fucking  _ lynel _ guarding the flowers, Hajime had begun to wonder if Tetsurou had sent them here with the intention of them not making it out.

“We were told about a farm off the path from Kakariko.” Tooru fished through his bag for the directions Tetsurou had given them. He’d shoved them back inside when running from the monster, and they were all wrinkled by now, but still readable enough. He squinted at Tetsurou’s handwriting. “Hoot Hill Farm…?”

She hummed again. Hajime couldn’t help but notice the scimitar secured along her back. Then there was that mask, and the fact that she’d given the lynel a  _ pet name _ . He watched her, carefully, for fear that she’d lead them into some secluded space of forest where she could loot and gut them for no one to find.

The gutting was a bit excessive, maybe. He wouldn’t put anyone past stealing from some lost, tired travelers, however. He sure as hell would have.

But she was small. They could take her, even with all of that muscle. Unless she had some kind of lynel whistle at the ready.

She caught his gaze, and the mask gave another bob. “Y’know,” she said, “we usually go to town ourselves for business. People don’t typically come  _ here.” _

“We?” Hajime repeated. Tetsurou hadn’t mentioned a Gerudo working the farm.

“Who sent you?” she asked, head tipping just slightly from him to Tooru, then to the paper in his hands.

Tooru looked up from the directions. He studied her, his eyes nearing slits while the corner of his mouth turned upward. “How secretive. You really  _ are _ a shady bunch, aren’t you?” he asked. “A certain bar owner near Castle Town told us to look for a loud guy that works around here. We just have some questions.”

“Some questions, huh? That voe with the funny hair send you?” She brought her hand to some spot near the mask’s forehead and spread her fingers down toward the nose, over one eye, mocking Tetsurou’s bangs.

“Ah, you know Tetsu, then.”

“Barely.” She jutted a finger over her shoulder, but they couldn’t see anything but trees beyond her. “He’s come here once. Kinda buddy-buddy with my friend. I’ll show you the way, and I  _ guess _ I won’t charge you, but I can’t guarantee he’ll be giving you any answers for free.”

They didn’t tell her that they had nothing to offer as payment, and followed when she turned and led them through the trees.

“My name’s Yukie, by the way,” she said after some silence, and they offered their own introductions in turn.

The next landmark on Tetsurou’s list was a giant, hollowed out tree, fallen on its side as a sort of tunnel that they’d have to travel through. Yukie led them there, and Hajime had to stop in his tracks to marvel at the size of it.

He wasn’t really sure what he’d expected, to begin with. The way Tetsurou had described it, he knew it would be larger than something they’d have to crawl through, at the very least. He hadn’t anticipated the tunnel to be about as tall as the cave they used as their hideout, however.

He found himself looking upward as he began to walk, eyes lingering on flowers and moss that dangled from cracks in the wood above. It was enchanting, really.

Moreso enchanting, was the view when they came out the other side of the tree. The forest parted way to a vast clearing, with small fields of leafy foods and berry bushes that bathed under the light of the afternoon sun. Beyond it all was a large fence, with what looked to be an old stable beside it. To the left, a coop and a smaller fence full of plump, brown and white birds, clucking away and pecking at the ground. Beside that, a cottage, all quaint and cozy, and just as charming as the inside of the tree they’d come through.

None of it  _ looked _ shady, Hajime thought.

It also didn’t look like there were any hills in sight, despite the farm’s name.

Yukie stood before them and removed the mask once more. She scanned the farm for something. Her attention settled on the coop, and she held the mask against her hip and cupped her other hand beside her mouth to shout,  _ “Hey, Owl-Head! You’ve got company!” _

Another strange nickname. Though, this one made far more sense than “Walnut” when Hajime spotted just who she’d been addressing.

They saw the man’s hair, first, because it was nearly impossible to miss the moment it poked up from behind the coop. It was all black and white streaks, and stood up and out to the sides like the feathers of an owl’s head might. Upon that mess, a cucco sat, having made itself a lovely little nest out of his hair.

Owl-Head’s eyebrows, arched in a way that Hajime was not convinced could be natural to any Hylian, lifted impressively high at the sight of his visitors. He stepped around the coop, strong arms gently cradling another cucco against his chest. The bird clucked and fidgeted in his hold, but he paid it little mind while he stared at Hajime and Tooru.

Yukie pulled the huge mask into both hands and waltzed on over to him. “Your bartender friend sent ‘em,” she said, and not-so-quietly added, “Watch out. I don’t trust ‘em.”

“We can hear you,” Hajime said, blankly.

She shrugged. “I was gonna head back out, but with these weirdos around…”

The man waved her off, giving the cucco a chance to flap and squirm out of his hold and onto the ground. The one in his hair seemed content to stay. “Nah, nah, it’s fine!” He leaned past her and waved at them. “Tetsurou sent you guys?” he called, at a much higher volume than necessary.

Hajime only nodded, while Tooru clapped his hands and approached the other.

“We’re friends of his!” he chirped, looking all too confident and approachable for someone with a face covered in gashes. “And, as a friend of a friend, he thought you could maybe help us with a little problem.”

“Did he?” the guy asked with a laugh. He hopped over the fence, and the cucco on his head finally toppled off and rolled onto the floor with the others. The guy’s hair was still full of feathers as he approached them, and Yukie was already headed back toward the woods, mask covering her head once again. “Real thoughtful of him, sendin’ two total strangers to my private property!” He crossed his arms and  _ grinned _ at them. He looked absolutely insane.

“Not strangers! Friends!” Tooru splayed his fingers over his chest.

“Or as good a friend as someone who sends you into lynel territory can be,” Hajime huffed.

The guy threw his head back with his next laugh. “You ran into Walnut! You came out without any burns or missing limbs, though. I’m impressed!” He clapped a hand on Tooru’s back with too much force, eliciting a startled cough from him. “What’re your names, oh friends of my asshole friend?”

Tooru offered their names once he regained his composure, and Owl-Head’s eyes lit up with interest.

_ “Oh!” _ he said, laughter vibrating around the word. “He’s mentioned you guys! Some story about Gorons, I think?”

Hajime couldn’t hold back his own amused snort as he came up beside Tooru, who was now wearing the most impressive of pouts.

“I’m sure he exaggerated whatever he told you,” Tooru insisted.

“I’m sure he didn’t,” Hajime countered.

“What? Nah, nah, I think it’s hilarious!” he said, as if it was praise, but Tooru only sulked more. “Name’s Koutarou, by the way. But, er, I guess he probably told ya that, already?” He folded his arms and looked them up and down, the exhausted messes they were. “So, what’d he send ya for? You guys are thieves, right? You need help with some big raid or somethin’?” 

“Nothing big,” Hajime said, while Tooru continued to huff over the mention of The Goron Incident. “We just need to take back something that was taken from us. Tetsurou said you might be able to give us some insight.”

Koutarou cocked his head to the side. “...What’d he tell you I do, exactly?”

Tooru shrugged. “Just said you knew shady people. Made it sound like you don’t tell him much.”

“Perfect!”

Hajime didn’t know whether to be charmed or put off by the way Koutarou’s entire being lit up and shook with every laugh that boomed out of him. It wasn’t the obnoxious, cackling sort of laughter, like Tetsurou’s, but rather something genuine and bright wrapped up in a deep, rumbling voice. That, and the mess of feathers sticking out of his hair and clothes, seemed such a stark contrast to the subject at hand. He hadn’t  _ denied _ knowing any shady people.

Koutarou turned toward the cottage and waved. “Come on in! We’ll see if we can work something out, huh?” He turned to them with a grin before tugging the side door open. “But don’t try to pull anything funny. I can take way more than two of ya.”

Hajime and Tooru each raised their empty hands and shook their heads, and Koutarou showed them inside.

It was all very earthy, with stone floors and wood walls that may have been made of the forest itself. The door led them through the kitchen, where heat still lingered from the fire place, and the smell of meat and spice wafted from a covered pot up on the table beside it. There were baskets all over the room, filled with various vegetables and fruits, undoubtedly from just outside.

It was… incredibly cozy. If Koutarou was actually smuggling things or doing any sort of illegal work here, he was doing an excellent job of covering it up. Even with them this tucked away in the woods, it felt like more of a quiet paradise than a hidden crime center.

“Sit down, sit down!” Koutarou insisted, as he rummaged through the cupboards for something.

There was a small, round table beyond those covered with the baskets and other food things. Hajime approached it, while Tooru stepped past it and peered beyond the dividing wall, into the rest of the abode.

“How homey,” Tooru hummed. “You have nice taste. Are those rugs in the living area from the desert?”

“Yeah! Yukie brought a bunch of that stuff with her when she moved in.” There was a crashing sound among all of his rummaging, but eventually Koutarou had produced three mugs. “Said she really liked the woodsy atmosphere or whatever, but she still wanted some stuff from home. She coulda just tossed whatever where ever, really, but it wound up lookin’ kinda nice, right?”

“Mhm.” Tooru glanced his way as Koutarou set down a mug of water in front of Hajime. “Is it just the two of you, here?”

“Why?” Koutarou asked, and he just about shoved Tooru’s mug into his hands. Still, he didn’t seem mad, or threatened. Moreso, he looked like he was anticipating some sort of challenge. “You guys lookin’ to pull somethin’ on us?”

Tooru accepted the water, but kept his eyes locked with Koutarou’s. “Nope!” he said, with a false smile. “Lucky for you, we promised Tetsu we’d leave your throat unslit!”

_ “Tooru,” _ Hajime growled. He was going to get them killed, and they’d only just arrived.

Tooru dismissed his warning tone with a wave of the hand. “I’m serious, though. We just want a lead. We’re not killers, anyway, and there are plenty of other unsuspecting places we could steal from that wouldn’t risk our relationship with Tetsu.”

“You guys  _ are _ hilarious!” Koutarou threw an arm around Tooru’s shoulder and shook him, while the latter tried not to spill his drink. “No slit throats, huh? That’s thoughtful. I don’t want the blood on the furniture, anyway.” He downed about half his drink in one go, like he was consuming something far more exciting than plain old water. Then again, maybe he was. Hajime hadn’t actually tried his drink, yet. “So, what’dya wanna ask me about?”

“We ran into trouble in Eldin last night.” Hajime took a sip from the mug. It really was just water, after all. He gulped down some more, now that he’d realized how thirsty the fiasco in the woods had left him. “Some assholes snuck into our room at the inn and took our shit.”

“Pff. I don’t have any contacts in Eldin. Sorry.”

“Not from Eldin.” Tooru tapped at his own cup. “Well, we don’t know that for sure. There’s a much better chance of them being from, or at least knowing someone in, Kakariko Village.”

Koutarou hummed a long hum of acknowledgement.

“You’re close by, so Tetsurou said you might have some ideas.”

“Or...” Tooru tilted his head and slipped a teasing lilt into his voice, “...that your boy toy from the village might, if you don’t.”

Koutarou’s mouth was wide open, a response on his tongue, when a click sounded from beyond the living room. All eyes turned in its direction, and even from where Hajime sat, he could see a door beyond Tooru and Koutarou open when it had been closed before.

Within the frame, with one hand on the handle and the other sliding across a tired face, stood someone, tan and shirtless, who was very clearly not a Gerudo, and almost as clearly not a Hylian.

His hair was pure white, in short, messy curls that parted way to a clear view of the markings covering his forehead. In red, the outline of an eye, curled at its corners, with three triangular markings above, adorned his skin. A long red line, rounded at the bottom like a teardrop, extended from the eye, down his nose, between two, bright red irises that made up his actual eyes.

Those eyes blinked at them, tiredly, then widened when they settled on Tooru in particular. His gaze flitted from him to Hajime, then back, something like recognition passing over him.

He quickly settled into a more passive expression. “You… have company,” he said, in an almost familiar, calm voice.

Hajime wished he knew why it was familiar, but he couldn’t think of any curly, white-haired people that he knew very personally. What he did know, was that everything about his appearance resembled the Sheikah of Kakariko.

When Hajime caught a glimpse of Tooru from the side, he realized that Tooru may have recognized something he hadn’t. His eyes were wide, and his mouth had parted open, just slightly, in disbelief.

“Keiji!” Koutarou slipped his arm off from Tooru’s shoulders. “You’re awake! Finally!”

Tooru stared at him for a long moment, while the Sheikah pointedly focused his attention on Koutarou, instead. Hajime could see the gears turning in Tooru’s head, could almost hear them clacking and grinding while he studied the new face.

The gears came to a halt, and Tooru’s mouthed twitched up in the nastiest of smiles.

_ Oh, no. _

“Keiji, is it?” Tooru asked, voice sweet as sugar tainted by a keg’s worth of rat poison. “We were  _ just _ talking about you.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter's narrative was mainly from Oikawa's POV. This chapter was Iwaizumi's. Guess who next chapter's is gonna be...!
> 
> [ Also special thanks to [newamsterdam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/newamsterdam/pseuds/newamsterdam) for looking over these past 2 chapters for me!!! ; u ; ]


	3. Heroes of Unethical Gardening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Should've probably stopped at thievery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~what do you mean my haikyuu fics aren't dead yet~~

Among the Sheikah, there were stories of those long ago who were blessed with prophetic gifts.

To his knowledge, Keiji had never met one of  _ those _ Sheikah, and he certainly was not one himself. Therefore, he could not have possibly, under any circumstances, predicted the presence of the two  _ guests _ in Koutarou’s cozy little abode.

Two amateurs who had their faces plastered all over Goron City should  _ not _ have been able to find him.

This wasn't even his house.

All of this clouded his thoughts when he laid eyes upon them. He thought, at first, that he might still be safe regardless. His hair, his eyes, all of it looked different now. He'd shed his Hylian disguise before he even entered the woods. The black hair they'd seen at the inn was now white. His facial markings were visible. He looked inarguably Sheikah, so they couldn't possibly recognize him now, he thought. He hoped. This all just had to be some unfortunate coincidence.

Except the way Tooru watched him with that knowing, proud gaze made Keiji second guess his conclusions.

“We were  _ just _ talking about you,” Tooru had said, too sickeningly sweet for him  _ not _ to know, or at least suspect something.

“Is that so?” Keiji asked, very careful not to project even the slightest hint of emotion. He set red eyes onto Koutarou, who just grinned with that smug grin he always gave whenever he bragged about Keiji, no matter how often Keiji asked him to stop. The bragging, that is. He could never wish away Koutarou’s blinding smile.

“You're the Sheikah…” Tooru waved a hand as he mulled over his word choice, “...boyfriend, then? Yes? Or plaything? I'm not concerned with the details.”

Keiji only allowed his brow to furrow slightly, because that comment was uncalled for regardless of the situation.

“Tetsu mentioned you.” Tooru delicately set down the mug Koutarou had offered him, as casually as if they were discussing tea, or the weather. “See, we're trying to track a pair of Sheikah. Any chance you could help us in our honest endeavor?”

Keiji was certain he wasn't imagining the way Tooru’s eyes drilled into him.

“You're after some  _ Sheikah?” _ Koutarou’s eyes went comically wide. Then he laughed at the absurdity of it. “Those Sheikah ain't ever bothered anyone! I thought you were after some  _ thieves!” _

Koutarou was right. Most of Kakariko’s people kept to themselves. Didn't cause trouble. They couldn't afford to, when their ancestors had a history of serving those that had opposed the great legend of Ganon that Hyrule had come to worship.

Keiji also knew that Koutarou was aware of at least two exceptions to the  _ “peaceful people of Kakariko.” _ Two thieves. Himself being one of them.

“We thought it was strange, too!” Tooru nodded, but even as he responded to Koutarou, his eyes never left Keiji’s. “But you wouldn't  _ believe _ the sort of stunts they pulled on us!” He waved his hands around him in a vague, but exaggerated gesture. “There was so much smoke, and all these vanishing tricks. It was just like the stuff from all those old stories. Crazy,  _ right?” _

Koutarou whistled, feigning awe. “No kidding? You two managed to get away from that  _ and _ Walnut? You sure you're not some magical Sheikah, yourselves?” He accompanied the question with a loud laugh, and Tooru’s expression fell, just slightly.

“I am being serious here, and I think you know it.”

“I ain't callin’ you a liar!” Koutarou clapped him on the back. “So, some not-so-peaceful Sheikah stole your stuff.  _ Okaaaay. _ And Tetsu sent you  _ here _ to get it back?”

“He thought this one might know something, if you didn't,” Hajime pointed a thumb at Keiji.

“If there are thieves within Kakariko, then they're doing a spectacular job of hiding themselves,” Keiji said, and that wasn't quite a lie, either. He and Akinori had been doing a  _ fabulous _ job of laying low. Well, until now, maybe.

Tooru hummed, long and deliberate. He looked over his shoulder to where Hajime still sat at the table. “Maybe we should search Kakariko ourselves.”

Keiji scoffed. He didn't mean to. “You won't find anything.”

“You sound  _ awfully _ sure.”

“And you are  _ awfully _ pushy.”

“The sword they stole was my favorite. I'd very much like it back.”

“There's a lovely armory west of here I could direct you to.”

“I don't think they'd have anything that would compare.”

“Perhaps you should lower your standards.”

“Perhaps you should be more aware of your surroundings, Sheikah.”

Keiji didn't know if he was referring to the supposed thieves of Kakariko, or threatening him. Maybe Koutarou had his suspicions, too, because he gave Tooru’s shoulder a tight squeeze, then slipped away to take Keiji by the wrist.

“Sorry about him,” he said, grinning over at the two intruders. “He gets really snippy when he's tired.”

“I don't,” Keiji said in a tone that proved Koutarou right.

“A moment?” Koutarou asked, and when Tooru didn't object, he gave Keiji a tug and dragged him back into his bedroom.

When he closed the door behind him, Keiji offered a flat look. “I can't tell if you're putting on an act or not,” he said.

_ “Keijiii.” _ Koutarou tugged him further from the door. “Have a little more faith in me! Those are the two, right?”

Ah, he’d figured out their situation, then. Good.

“Yes, and I don't think leaving two thieves alone in your kitchen is a wise decision.”

“I let  _ you _ in my kitchen all the time.” Before Keiji could even insist that  _ this was different, _ Koutarou added, “Plus, you said they were harmless. Akinori called them ‘easy targets’ or something, right?”

“Yes, but they're  _ here, _ Koutarou. Those idiots somehow  _ found _ me.” A pause. “I will strangle your bartender friend with his own entrails.”

“Aw, babe, I'm sure he didn't mean any trouble.”

“His type always means trouble. Everyone you hang out with means trouble.”

“Like you.”

_ That was different. _

Keiji must have been making some sort of offended face, because Koutarou snorted and kissed him quick on the cheek.

“How do you want to deal with this?”

“I want to feed them to Walnut.”

“Walnut doesn't eat people.”

“Walnut should broaden his horizons.”

“You're so violent,” Koutarou said with a grin and a look in his eyes that made Keiji very much want to pin him to the bed and forget all about the problem beyond the door. “Wanna start with knocking ‘em out?”

“I  _ guess,” _ Keiji conceded. “Then we can... figure out what to do with them after the matter.” A sigh. “They're likely on their guard, so careful to-- What are you doing?”

Koutarou had already left his side, and was rummaging through one of his dresser drawers. “I've got this.”

“Got what-- No-- Koutarou, stop, we don't need an elaborate plan.”

“It's not an  _ elaborate _ plan. It's just a good one.”

“What could you possibly be looking for…”

When Koutarou withdrew his hands, he had a shiny gold band around each wrist, and a very confident look about him.

“Jewelry,” Keiji observed dryly.

“It's gonna be great,” Koutarou insisted, and he turned for the door and pulled the thing open before Keiji could object.

Said door closed right in his face, leaving Keiji alone in Koutarou’s room without the faintest clue of what the farmer had in mind.

Vaguely, a little too delayed to do any good, he recalled Yukie complaining about some magic bracelets Koutarou had accepted as payment in exchange for some stolen axes. Her story had involved an unnatural boost in Koutarou’s physical strength and a lot of broken furniture.

Distantly, Keiji wondered if magically enhanced strength meant that Koutarou’s muscles would become impossibly larger than they already were, because if so, he felt like he was missing a show by standing behind this door.

A loud crash disrupted his thoughts, and he was fairly certain the door shook with the aftershocks of it.

Maybe he should have had a talk on subtlety before Koutarou rushed out, at the very least.

Some yelling followed, then another crash, then some less aggressive, but still relatively loud thuds.

When silence followed, he pushed the bedroom door open with caution.

Koutarou had both thieves slung over his shoulders.

“Impressive,” Keiji said, as if he wasn't stupidly aroused by the prospect of his boyfriend effortlessly carrying even  _ one _ man’s worth of weight with one hand.

“Pretty great, right?!” Koutarou grinned and tossed the two bodies onto the rug. “The guy said I could lift whole boulders with these babies, but Yukie wouldn't let me try…”

“I’d have thought she'd egg you on.”

“It was after I broke her bed.”

Made sense.

Keiji stepped over to the unconscious thieves, and he made a point to take in Koutarou’s appearance with the bracers as he passed him. No noticeable changes in his muscles. They were the usual, same appealing size as always.

“So, what?” Koutarou crossed his arms and turned to Keiji. “Dump them on the side of the road? The nearest river?”

“Feed them to Walnut.”

Koutarou laughed. Keiji did not tell him he was being serious.

“They know how to find this place, Koutarou. I don't want them coming back here, or going to Kakariko with knowledge of…  _ this.” _ He waved his hands in a vague gesture to himself. The Sheikah held their values high, and what Keiji and Akinori did with their free time did not exactly mix well with those values. Lady Alisa would be absolutely heartbroken to know that they'd been thieving and dealing with Koutarou’s black market bullshit. Keiji did not want to be responsible for that sort of disappointment and hurt. She didn't deserve it. No one in the village did.

Realistically, murder was probably not the best way to avoid that. But, then, if their morals aligned to begin with, Keiji wouldn't have found himself in this predicament.

“Okay, but…” Koutarou tilted his head toward the bodies, “...I don't really want blood in my land, y’know? I've only ever buried Yukie’s dead cat here, so…”

“Not here, then.”

“So, yes murder, just not here?”

Keiji ran his hands back through his hair. He held tight to the white curls. Was this too extreme? Maybe this was too extreme. 

“I mean, we've got the wagon,” Koutarou supplied.

Keiji stared at him. “You're completely on board with this.”

Koutarou shrugged. “What's a healthy relationship if you can't bury a few bodies together?”

“You're insane. I love you.”

Koutarou snorted. “This was  _ your _ idea! And, unless you come up with a better one, I'll be prepping the wagon.” He pointed over his shoulder, and began backtracking for the front door, leaving Keiji alone with two of Goron City’s most wanted.

He hadn't the faintest clue what Koutarou even did to knock them out. The furniture still looked in tract. Did he just… punch them? But  _ where? _

There was no telling when they'd wake up.

With the smallest of huffs, he searched until he found some suitable rope, and bound their arms and legs. By the time Koutarou returned, they were tied and gagged well enough to keep them from becoming an issue, should they awaken.

“Last chance to back out,” Koutarou said.

“Got an alternative in mind?”

“Bribery?”

“Too risky.”

“Then I got nothin’.”

Keiji shrugged. Koutarou took that as an ok to sling both men over his shoulders once again.

He'd pulled up the same covered wagon he and Yukie used for all of their business. The inside had a hidden compartment built in, with a door that blended in with the rest of the wagon floor. It was enough room to stash stolen weaponry just fine, but certainly not two full-grown Hylian men.

Koutarou seemed to realize this, because he stopped to pout at the wagon when he approached the back.

“We can just throw a tarp over ‘em, I guess…”

“Your lack of confidence is far from comforting, Koutarou.”

“I've never snuck  _ bodies _ in this thing before!” He unceremoniously tossed Tooru and Hajime into the wagon. How none of this had woken them up was a mystery. “It's fine. No one around here ever asks to search me, anyway. People love me and Yukie.”

“Uh huh…” Still not comforting. “Do you have… I don't know, a large, wooden chest or something?”

“If anyone  _ did _ search us, they'd definitely check a chest!”

Fair enough.

“What about you?” Koutarou leaned an elbow against the back step of the wagon. “Any Sheikah tricks to make them look like a crate of apples?”

“You know that's not within my arsenal,” Keiji said as he formed a symbol with his fingers, and a moment later he was engulfed in a cloud of smoke. Once cleared, his hair was back to its unnatural black disguise. The mark of the Sheikah eye upon his forehead was nowhere to be seen.

“But you can do that.”

“To myself, yes.”

“And you're never going to tell me how.”

“Sheikah secret.” Keiji offered the faintest hint of a sly smile.

Koutarou whistled, and hopped up into the wagon himself.

They covered them with tarps, and surrounded them with crates and baskets of goods from the farm so that it looked no different from any other delivery into town. When Yukie returned, Koutarou began to explain, but she only told them  _ “I don't want to know,” _ and retreated into the house with her lynel mask and basket of fruit.

When all was ready for the road, Keiji sat at the front of the wagon with stiff shoulders.

Koutarou readied the horse, then gave Keiji’s arm a playful shove once he was seated beside him.

“Ready to commit a murder?”

“No. Yes.” Keiji sank his face into his hands. “Are you sure we can't just throw them at Walnut?”

“He won't eat them.”

“He’ll impale them for us. That's half the job, right there.”

“I still don't wanna bury them  _ here!” _

_ “Something _ will probably eat them.”

Koutarou nudged him again with a short laugh that was far too carefree for the situation. Then, with a practiced motion of the reins and a click of the tongue, the horse and wagon were in motion.

Normally, Keiji would have tried to savor every second of this. Very rarely did he actually join Koutarou on his trips into town, but being alone with him on these rides was relaxing. He enjoyed this.

Not so much when they had two soon-to-be corpses in the back.

“Question,” he said, after a long stretch of silence. They were on a trail surrounded by trees, where the sun shone through the leaves in clusters of light over them. He waited for a hum of acknowledgement to continue. “How was your friend at the bar able to tip them off?”

Koutarou did not answer, but he did bite his lip.

“Koutarou,” Keiji said, voice stern, this time, “Why would that man know there'd be a Sheikah with you?”

“I only brag about you  _ sometimes!” _

Keiji exhaled through his nose, long and slow. Koutarou bragged about him a lot around Yukie, and even around himself. He should have expected this, really. He should have maybe had a talk about this, sooner.

Koutarou was not done defending himself, of course. “I didn't tell him I was seeing a Sheikah  _ thief, _ though!”

“Yes, well, if he knows you at all, he probably would have thought you a good lead, based on their story.”

Koutarou sank down into the seat a pout on his face. “He probably thought he was being helpful… somehow…”

“Don't defend other shady people.”

“If you get to defend Akinori, I get to defend Tetsurou.”

_ “Yukie _ is your Akinori. You don't get more suspicious friend slots. That's it.”

“I get  _ you.” _

“We're dating. Doesn't count.”

“What, the shady boyfriend slot is separate?”

“Yes.”

Koutarou snorted. “That's not fair.”

“I'm about to become a murderer because you and your  _ friend _ can't keep your mouths shut. Don't talk to me about fair.” A long pause, and then Keiji pulled his hands over his face. “Murderer. Hylia help me. I'm going to be a  _ murderer.” _

“I guess theft is like… the gateway crime.” Koutarou gave Keiji a pat on the back. “At least you won't, uh, be a murderer alone? I don't know if that helps.”

Keiji separated his fingers enough to peek through them. He stared at the path ahead with uncertainty. “You are far too calm about this.”

“Like I said, what kind of boyfriend would I be if I wasn't willing to kill a man or two for ya?”

“...A sane one, probably.”

Koutarou nodded, as if that were reasonable enough. “So, how should we… uh…” He pursed his lips, trying to find the right words. “Do we just… bury them alive or…”

This is not a conversation Keiji ever wanted to have. This was so, so different from taking out some pesky bokoblins, or knocking out a traveler on the road for a few rupees. He was beginning to feel sick, and this had been  _ his _ idea.

“Going for the throats would be quickest… I guess…”

“Okay, okay.” Koutarou glanced from the path to Keiji from the corners of his eyes. “Do you… want me to do it, or…”

“I can… do it, I think…”

“There's two of ‘em... We can both do it…”

“I’m both concerned and appreciative of your unwavering support.”

Koutarou just grinned that blinding grin at him.

“You’re gonna have to bury them, though.”

“You can do the bloody stuff, but not that?”

“I don’t want to deal with them after they’re dead,” Keiji admitted. “And you’re more used to… shovels.”

“Shovels.”

“Yes. Shovels.” Keiji swallowed. “You have shovels in the back, right?”

“I have a shovel, yeah.” Koutarou continued to glance at him, never taking his eyes from the path for too long. “You look pale.”

“How silly of me.”

“You can probably lay down in the back, if you need to…”

“With the two men we have tied up back there? Koutarou, I don’t think that will ease my nerves any.” He wasn’t sick-- well, not in the traditional sense. A little sick with himself, perhaps.

“We’ll be done soon, okay? And we can just, uh, pretend this never happened?”

“As soon as we can, yes. That would... be ideal.” On the last two words, Keiji’s voice fell into a sort of quiet reserved for danger, and danger alone. It was a cautious way of speaking, and two words were all that was necessary for Koutarou to understand.

His gaze flickered from one thing to another. First Keiji, then down the path, then over his shoulder toward the wagon flaps that sectioned them off from their captives.

But the captives weren’t the problem. The problem was further down the road, in the form of two extra sets of hoofsteps separate from Koutarou’s horse. Not heavy enough to belong to any lynel, but more steady than the uncharted path of any wild horse.

“Company,” Keiji whispered.

“Coming our way?”

A nod.

“I’ll handle it. You’re crazy tense right now. You might scare ‘em off.”

“Scaring them off would be beneficial.”

“Ok, well, you might scare them into suspicion. How’s that?”

A small huff, and Keiji tugged the flap behind him open. “Be on your guard.”

“This ain’t my first time smuggling stuff in this thing, babe.” Koutarou offered what was probably supposed to be a reassuring grin. Keiji didn’t feel assured, but that had less to do with Koutarou, and more to do with just about everything else.

Without another word, Keiji slipped inside.

As concealed as they were, it was difficult to judge whether or not the two thieves were still unconscious or not. The tarp didn’t move much, save for the occasional disturbance of a wheel bumping a rock, so he hoped for the best. Tried to, anyway. It wouldn’t be difficult to knock them out a third time as they were, in any case. That was, given that the ropes were still secured as they had been. He’d have loved to check on them and give himself some peace of mind, but for the time being, hiding himself was more important.

He tugged another tarp free from the wares. There was enough space for him to squeeze between the crates of fruit and re-cover them all. He’d much rather just blend in with the surrounding canvas and wood of the wagon, but he didn’t know how well he could pull off a trick like that while the thing was in motion. Very, very unsteady motion.

_ “...and town’s the other way, isn’t it?” _

He had the tarp slung over his back when he picked up on the conversation outside. Bits and pieces of it, anyway. The wagon had slowed somewhat, and the additional hoofsteps were nearer. None of these things made Keiji any more hopeful.

_ “Hope you’re not headed for that stable north of here. I hear there’s been a lot of trouble with thieves there, lately.” _

News certainly traveled fast.

What was more concerning, was that both of these voices came from either side of the wagon. Travelers didn’t make idle conversation in passing by surrounding someone on both sides. Not without ulterior motives. Keiji knew better than that. Koutarou knew better.

Which might have explained the loud flick of reins and the sudden increase in wagon speed.

Keiji stumbled back from his intended hiding place. He caught himself on a stack of crates and tried not to slip on the stray berries that rolled out from it. The tarp was flung off to the side-- not that hiding was still a viable option when everything to hide around was shaking and tipping and sliding across the wagon floor.

He righted himself against the crates, just in time for the unmistakable  _ swish _ and  _ fwip _ of an arrow cutting through air and cloth to grace his ears. The hole it left in the wagon cover shined light down upon the offending weapon from the outside. It had lodged itself into the wagon floor, just short of the tarp thrown over the two thieves.

The panicked sounds of Koutarou’s horse filled the air. Another arrow shot through the wagon, lodging itself in the wood, but unmistakably aimed in the driver’s direction.

The cool feeling of metal slid across Keiji’s wrists and palms as he knelt and slipped hidden knives out from his sleeves. With hasty movements, he untied and flung the back flap of the wagon open.

He was met with the sight of a silver steed and a hooded rider. Their bow was already aimed his way, but a spark of surprise flashed across what little of their face Keiji could see beneath the hood at his reveal.

Change in plans, Koutarou.

He was  _ absolutely _ going to scare them off.

With a practiced flick of the wrist, Keiji’s throwing knives were sent flying, thin cords trailing after them to keep them under his control. They sliced through the rider’s cloak and grazed their cheek. The rider reared back in the midst of shooting off another arrow, and the projectile just narrowly missed Keiji as it tore through the canvas beside him.

He curled his fingers around the cords and pulled his hand back. The knives he’d thrown dragged along the dirt path after them, until one sharp tug had the weapons flying back through the air, toward their owner. On the way, one’s blunt end hit the rider in the back of the head. Another got caught on their bow. Another tug, and it was knocked out from their hands.

The wagon gave a jolt that sent Keiji stumbling further back inside. He caught his balance and cursed. There was still at least one other rider out there, somewhere near the front, so he supposed he couldn’t blame Koutarou or his horse for the clumsy steering.

Most of his knives had been reclaimed, now spread across the wagon floor by loose cords that he still gripped tight. The sole exception was the single knife still tangled in the rider’s bow, bumping along the dirt and rock of the trail.

The rider followed behind it, hood knocked back to reveal an angered Hylian with dark curls shorter than Keiji’s own. He had a forked spear in hand now, and his horse was picking up speed faster than the wagon could hope to outrun.

They hit another bump, and Keiji watched the silver horse leap over the large branch in the road with ease. The rider jabbed the spear outward in what looked like a foolish attempt to stab a target that he wasn’t nearly close enough to.

Only belatedly did Keiji realize it wasn’t him he was aiming at. The spear’s hook caught on the cord of the knife and bow, and the rider pulled it toward himself, yanking Keiji’s wrist along with it. He dug his heels against the floor to hold his ground as the rider took the cord into his hands and tugged harder against him.

With a click of the tongue, Keiji curled his fingers against his palm, feeling for the small metal pieces built into his glove. They extended from the wrist, just barely reaching a point he could touch with his fingertips. His ring finger felt the right one and flipped it like a switch, severing the problematic cord and freeing him from the game of tug of war.

He was short one knife now, but it was maybe worth the satisfaction of watching the bow split in half beneath the horse’s hooves.

He flipped another switch, and the rest of his knives retreated back into his sleeve, just in time for the wagon to take too-sharp a turn. Keiji felt the whole thing tilt in a way that wagons were very much  _ not _ meant to tilt. The wheels on the right  _ had _ to be off the ground. The cargo slid to one side, up until they found a straight path and everything fell back in place with a disorienting  _ thud. _ Keiji was knocked off his feet, this time. The silver horse and rider were no longer trailing them. They stopped at the edge of the trail, their rosey-haired partner beside them on a black and white steed. The sight of them was quickly overtaken by trees and hanging vines as foliage whirred past them.

They were no longer on the path.

They were also moving  _ much faster _ than any horse and wagon had any business moving.

The road-- or lack thereof-- grew more unsteady as they traveled downhill. The wagon cover fell closed among it all, blocking Keiji’s view as he was flung to the side against the covered bodies of the thieves. There was a groan, and one of them stirred beneath the tarp, but Keiji quickly knocked an elbow against what was hopefully the back of his head as hard as he could to silence him.

The jostling only got worse. If Keiji had a weaker stomach, this might have been around the point he’d have thrown up.

Something hit them from the side. Or, they hit something from the side. Then the opposite side. It was one after the other, and he could hear the distressed noises of the horse and Koutarou’s cursing before a very loud  _ crash _ shook everything.

Canvas tore open and wood split apart as the wagon met with a congestion of trees. Stray chunks of wood and produce came raining down on everyone inside. It wasn’t enough to keep Keiji from climbing out once the wagon was on its side, but certainly enough to leave him with a slice to the head and a nasty trail of blood down the left portion of his face.

The vines and fallen leaves of the woods threatened to devour his feet once he made it outside. This place was overgrown. Untouched by anything but the creatures of the wilderness, if even that.

The perfect place to bury some annoying thieves, if it weren’t for the big broken down wagon marking their spot.

He gave the fresh cut at his hairline an experimental touch, then winced and decided  _ not _ to do that very thing again.

“Koutarou?” he whispered, slowly straightening to get a better grasp on his surroundings. He was dizzy, whether from the blood or ride, he wasn’t certain. He placed a hand along what little of the wagon’s cover was still intact and followed along it until he reached the front. The driver was no longer in the driver’s seat when he got there. “Koutarou.  _ Koutarou!” _

He whipped around at the sound of rustling leaves. Equal parts relief and panic washed over him at the sight of black and white hair poking out from over a bush. Panic especially, when he rushed closer and found that it was the thorniest bush he’d ever seen.

“Hylia--  _ shit-- _ Koutarou, are you--” He reached forward, gently taking either side of Koutarou’s face in his hands. The man was on his back, unceremoniously tossed over the top of the bush, limbs splayed over the thorny mess with streaks of red as a result.

“M’okay…” he slurred, eyes squinted closed with discomfort despite the claim.

“You are absolutely  _ not.” _ Keiji tried to work his hands beneath his arms to hoist him back up. He ignored the sting of thorns poking through his gloves.

“Horse’s gone.”

“I’m not worried about the horse right now.” He would be later. For now, he just wanted them both upright. “We need to leave,” he stressed, with another attempt at lifting his boyfriend off from the bush. “Why can’t you be  _ smaller?” _

“Y’love my m… meef…”

“What?”

“Muscle. Beef. Said both.”

“Do not fall asleep on me. Koutarou, please, my head’s spinning. Help me out, here.”

With some effort, Koutarou eventually came tumbling off from the thorny mess. None of his cuts were as bad as the one on Keiji’s head, but there were still a  _ lot _ of cuts. One shallow one was long enough that it may have been the work of a sword or knife.

“Bandages in the back…”

“We don’t have time.”

“Dun think they’re still following. Should be fine.”

“This isn’t  _ fine!” _ Keiji stepped back from him and breathed in a few sharp, quick breaths. Koutarou patted the ground, like he was maybe trying to give Keiji a reassuring pat. Or maybe he just hit his head too hard when he got flung off the wagon. Maybe he had about as much a clue what he was doing as Keiji did.

“Bandages, Keiji.” He squinted up at him, this time. “Can’t bury some criminals if we bleed our brains out.”

That did not make the task of breathing any easier.

With a groan, Koutarou rolled onto his side, then slowly propped himself up by the elbows. “Look, hey, lookit me. No one comes back ‘ere, kay? S’fine.”

“Koutarou, I think those thorns might’ve been poisonous.”

“What? No. I’m not poisonous.”

“You’re not poisoned.”

“That’s what I said.” He squinted at Keiji a second longer. “Bandages. And red potion.”

“Potion,” Keiji repeated. “Fine. Okay. Where do I…”

Koutarou motioned for Keiji to come closer. He did so, and with some more clumsy struggling, managed to get one of Koutarou’s arms slung over his shoulder. They trudged back on over to the wagon, or what was left of it. There was some delay between when Koutarou spotted it and when he whined, “I can’t  _ drive _ this.”

“We don’t have a horse, anyway.”

“My  _ vegetables.” _

“I know. I’m sorry. I’ll steal you a new wagon.”

“I can’t sell vegetables from a stolen wagon!”

“I’ll steal you money for a new wagon.” Keiji sighed and sat Koutarou down so that he was leaning against the back of the wagon remains. “Where are these first aid supplies?”

“Under the… uh… y’know the kinda greenish… crate…”

“Koutarou.”

“Lemme do it.”

“No.”

“You’re bleeding.”

_ “You’re _ bleeding.”

Koutarou swatted at Keiji’s leg from where he sat, then pulled himself up toward the torn canvas opening. “You’re overreacting. Look just… just clean up ‘n we’ll drag ‘em outta here ‘n bury ‘em under the spiky bush. No one’s gonna check under the spiky bush.”

“Neither of us are going near the spiky bush again.”

“Half the job’s probably done ‘lready. They might be dead by now.”

_ We could only be so lucky, _ Keiji thought as he tugged the flap open further. Inside was the same mess of food and debris that had been there when he left. Fruit. Vegetables. Broken crates. The tarp.

And nothing underneath it.

The two stared inside, Koutarou squinting like trying to make out what he was seeing physically hurt him, then amended, “Or, they could be gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Thank you [silvercistern](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvercistern) for looking over this chapter for me!! And also for the idea for this chapter's beautiful title. ]

**Author's Note:**

> If you're new to my junk, sometimes I post art and brainstormy stuff on [the tumblrs](http://chosenofkagami.tumblr.com/heroes-of-nothing).
> 
> * * *


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